Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa: With Sixteen Illustrations in Colour by William Parkinson and Sixteen Other Illustrations, Second EditionHutton, Edward
History
Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa: With Sixteen Illustrations in Colour by William Parkinson and Sixteen Other Illustrations, Second Edition
Hutton, Edward
Art -- Italy -- Florence; Genoa (Italy) -- History; Tuscany (Italy) -- Description and travel
But it is in the frescoes on the right wall that Giotto is seen at his
highest: it is the story of St. John the Divine; above he dreams on
Patmos, below he raises Drusiana at the Gate of Ephesus, and is himself
received into heaven. Damaged though they be, there is nothing in all
Italian art more fundamental, more simple, or more living than these
frescoes. It is true that the Dream of St. John is almost ruined, and
what we see to-day is very far from being what Giotto painted, but in
the Raising of Drusiana and in the Ascension of St. John we find a
grandeur and force that are absent from painting till Giotto's time, and
for very many years after his death. The restorer has done his best to
obliterate all trace of Giotto's achievement, especially in the fresco
of Drusiana, but in spite of him we may see here Giotto's very work, the
essence of it at any rate, its intention and the variety of his powers
of expressing himself.
The chapel nearest the choir was built by Ridolfo de' Bardi, it is said,
sometime after 1310,[106] and it was for him that Giotto painted there
the story of St. Francis; while on the ceiling he has painted the three
Franciscan virtues, Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience, and in the fourth
space has set St. Francis in Glory, as he had done in a different manner
at Assisi.
After the enthusiastic pages of Ruskin,[107] to describe these frescoes,
beautiful still, in spite of their universal restoration, would be
superfluous. It will be enough to refer the reader to his pages, and to
add the subjects of the series. Above, on the left wall, St. Francis
renounces his father, while below he appears to the brethren at Arles,
and under this we see his death. On the left above, Pope Honorius gives
him his Rule, and below, he challenges the pagan priests to the test of
the fire before the Sultan, and appears to Gregory IX, who had thought
to deny that he received the Stigmata. Beside the window Giotto has
painted four great Franciscans, St. Louis of Toulouse, St. Clare, St.
Louis of France, and St. Elizabeth of Hungary. All these frescoes in the
Bardi Chapel are much more damaged by restoration than those in Cappella
Peruzzi.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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