22 GIOTTO AND HIS WORKS IN PADUA

than itself, and cares little for the fruits of a toil which it is apt to undertake rather as a law of life than a means of immortality. It will sing at a feast, or retouch an old play, or paint a dark wall, for its daily bread, anxious only to be honest in its fulfilment of its pledges or its duty, and careless that future ages will rank it among the gods.

9. I think it unnecessary to repeat here any other of the anecdotes commonly related of Giotto, as, separately taken, they are quite valueless. Yet much may be gathered from their general tone. It is remarkable that they are, almost without exception, records of good-humoured jests, involving or illustrating some point of practical good sense:¹ and by comparing this general colour of the reputation of Giotto with the actual character of his designs, there cannot remain the smallest doubt that his mind was one of the most healthy, kind, and active, that ever informed a human frame. His love of beauty was entirely free from weakness; his love of truth untinged by severity; his industry constant, without impatience; his workmanship accurate, without formalism; his temper serene, and yet playful; his imagination exhaustless, without extravagance; and his faith firm, without superstition. I do not know, in the annals of art, such another example of happy, practical, unerring, and benevolent power.

I am certain that this is the estimate of his character which must be arrived at by an attentive study of his works, and of the few data which remain respecting his life; but I shall not here endeavour to give proof of its truth, because I believe the subject has been exhaustively treated by Rumohr and Förster,² whose essays on the works

¹ [“Giotto had always a jest ready, and was never at a loss for a witty reply, so that he amused the king (of Naples) with his hand while he painted, and also by the acuteness of his pleasant conversation,” etc. (see Vasari, vol. i. pp. 108, 119-121, Bohn’s edition).]

² [Rumohr’s Italienische Forschungen (1827) contains notices of Giotto. Neither his essays nor those of Ernest Förster (author of Geschichte der Italienischen Kunst and many kindred works) have been translated into English. For reference to another book by Förster, see Vol. XII. p. 213.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]