It was dedicated March 25, 1305, Giotto being nearly forty years old, and it was probably not completely painted on the day of dedication, since many draperies were borrowed from St. Mark’s, Venice, to cover, presumably, the still unpictured parts of the walls. Giotto lived some four years in Padua, brought his family there, received the exiled poet Dante and with him joked not too decorously about his own ugliness and that of his children. It seems likely enough, though not certain, that he followed the banished Pope to Avignon about 1309, and spent some years in Southern France. What is certain is that he was again in Florence by 1312, and that, having found his own solution of the problem of mass in the Arena Chapel, he thereafter rested comfortably on his discovery, never was quite as strenuous again, and spent his later years at a new problem—that of decorative symmetry. [Illustration: FIG. 18. Giotto. Hope.—_Arena, Padua._ ] The first experiment towards a sweeter and more complex style was made in the cross vaults of the Lower Church of Assisi, immediately above the tomb of St. Francis. The subjects were the three virtues of the Franciscan vow—Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience—with a St. Francis in a glory of angels. In these great triangular compositions, allegory and symbolism run riot, and we do well to recall Hazlitt’s shrewd remark on Spenser’s “Faery Queene”—“the allegory will not bite.” Indeed one might forget it for the radiance of the azures, moss-greens, rose pinks, and deeper violets, for the delightful contrast of the freely composed groups with the intricate geometrical formality of the rich borders. Yet to ignore the allegory completely would be to forget the master’s intention. We may savor it best in the great composition: St. Francis Marries his Lady Poverty, Figure 18_a_. The bridal group stands on a central crag, Christ serving as priest, St. Francis slipping a ring on the gaunt hand of a haggard, yet strangely fascinating bride clothed in a single ragged garment. Her bare feet show through a crisply drawn and blossomless rose tree. Two urchins at the foot of the little cliff stand ready to stone so unseemly a bride. From the central group to right and left, earnest groups of angels spread in a descending curve. In the lower angle, left, a young man gives his rich cloak to an old beggar, while an angel points to the bridal: Poverty is accepted. At the lower right corner, another angel attempts to detain a young man who passes with a gesture of contempt in the company of two portly priests: Poverty is rejected by such. From the apex of the great triangle, the hands of God descend to welcome two angels, one of which offers the cloak given to the beggar, and the other a model of the church which is the splendid covering for the body of the Saint. The fantastic beauty of this and its companion pieces can only be appreciated on the spot. No frescoes of