angled asserts
itself where, by all guidebook laws, it should not. When I take up my
pen to write to you, I am thinking more of a white-moustached old
Yankee at an hotel than about the things I have seen within the same
24 hours: the frescoes of Santa Croce, the illuminations of St.
Marco; the white marbles of the tower of Giotto; the very Madonnas of
Raphael, the very David of Michael Angelo. Throughout this tour, in
pursuance of our theory of travelling, we have avoided the guide: he
is the death-knell of individual liberty. Once only we broke through
our rule and that was in favour of an extremely intelligent, nay
impulsive young Italian in Santa Maria Novella, a church where we saw
some of the most interesting pieces of mediaeval painting I have ever
seen, interesting not so much from an artistic as from a moral and
historical point of view. Particularly noticeable was the great
fresco expressive of the grandest mediaeval conception of the
Communion of Saints, a figure of Christ surmounting a crowd of all
ages and stations, among whom were not only Dante, Petrarca, Giotto,
etc., etc., but Plato, Cicero, and best of all, Arius. I said to the
guide, in a tone of expostulation, "Heretico!" (a word of impromptu
manufacture). Whereupon he nodded, smiled and was positively radiant
with the latitudinarianism of the old Italian painter. It was
interesting for it was a fresh proof that even the early Church
united had a period of thought and tolerance before the dark ages
closed around it. There is one thing that I must tell you more of
when we meet, the tower of Giotto. It was built in a square of
Florence, near the Cathedral, by a self-made young painter and
architect who had kept sheep as a boy on the Tuscan hills. It is
still called "The Shepherd's Tower." What I want to tell you about is
the series of bas-reliefs, which Giotto traced on it, representing
the creation and progress of man, his discovery of navigation,
astronomy, law, music and so on. It is religious in the grandest
sense, but there is not a shred of doctrine (even the Fall is
omitted) about this history in stone. If Walt Whitman had been an
architect, he would have built such a tower, with such a story on it.
As I want to go out and have a good look at it before we start for
Venice tomorrow, I must cut this short. I hope you are enjoying
yourself as m