of the virtues and vices--the
former feminine and ideal, the latter masculine and individual--while
the entrance wall is covered with the wonderful _Last Judgment_.

Here, as in his allegorical pieces, Giotto appears as a great innovator,
a number of situations suggested by the Scriptures being now either
represented for the first time or seen in a totally new form. Well-known
subjects are enriched with numerous subordinate figures, making the
picture more truthful and more intelligible; as in the Flight into
Egypt, where the Holy Family is accompanied by a servant, and three
other figures are introduced to complete the composition. In the Raising
of Lazarus, too, the disciples behind the Saviour on the one side and
the astonished multitude on the other form two choruses, an arrangement
which is followed, but with considerable modification, in Ouwater's
unique picture of the same subject now in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum at
Berlin. This approach to dramatic reality sometimes assumes a character
which, as Kugler puts it, oversteps the strict limits of the higher
ecclesiastical style. It is worth noting, however, that the early
Netherlandish school--as we shall see in a later chapter--developed this
characteristic to a far greater extent, continuing the tradition handed
down, quite independently of Giotto, through illuminated manuscripts,
and with less of that expression of the highest religious or moral
feeling which is so evident in Giotto.

The few existing altar-pieces of Giotto are less important than his
frescoes, inasmuch as they do not admit of the exhibition of his higher
and most original gifts. Two signed examples are a _Coronation of the
Virgin_ in Santa Croce at Florence, and a _Madonna_, with saints and
angels on the side panels, originally in S. Maria degli Angeli at
Bologna, and now in the Brera at Milan. The latter, however, is not now
recognised as his. The earliest authentic example is the so-called
Stefaneschi altar-piece, painted in 1298 for the same patron who
commissioned the _Navicella_. Giotto's highest merit consists especially
in the number of new subjects which he introduced, in the life-like and
spiritual expression with which he heightened all familiar occurrences
and scenes, and in the choice of the moment of representation. In all
these no earlier Christian painter can be compared with him. Another and
scarcely less important quality he possessed is in the power of
conveying truth of char