[70] _Right_ transept is always synonymous with _South_ transept, but in this case, as San Francesco is built with the altar facing to the west because it was necessary to have the entrance away from the precipitous side of the hill, the _Right_ transept looks to the _North_, the _Left_ to the _South_, and we have thought it easier to keep to the actual position of the church in describing the different frescoes. Herr Thode in his book has done this, but it may be well to observe that Messrs Crowe and Cavacaselle refer to the transepts and chapels as if they faced the parts of the compass in the usual way. [71] To facilitate seeing the paintings of the ceiling, both here and in the Lower Church, it would be well to use a hand-glass, a simple and most effectual addition to the comfort of the traveller. [72] Mr Ruskin says that the gable of the bishop's throne is "of the exact period when the mosaic workers of the thirteenth century at Rome adopted rudely the masonry of the north. Briefly this is a Greek temple pediment, in which, doubtful of their power to carve figures beautiful enough, they cut a trefoiled hold for ornament, and bordered the edge with a harlequinade of mosaic. They then call to their aid the Greek sea waves, and let the surf of the Ægean climb along the slopes, and toss itself at the top into a fleur-de-lys." CHAPTER VI _The Paintings of Giotto and his School in the Lower Church_ "... Cimabue thought To lord it over painting's field; and now The cry is Giotto's, and his name eclipsed." DANTE, _Purgatory_, xi., Cary's translation. The work of Cimabue, grand and noble as it is, yet gives the impression of belonging to remote times, between which and that of Giotto, his pupil, a great gulf is set. In both churches at Assisi we pass from the early efforts of an awakening age to the work of one, who, if not the first to see the light, was the first to discover the true principles of art, to give it life, and to found a school whence a long series of painters came to carry on for generations the lessons he had taught. Cimabue did wonders for the century in which he lived; of Giotto, even granting that his drawing was sometimes faulty, and the types of faces he painted were not always beautiful, it would be an insult to express such condescending praise; and even a hasty study of his frescoes in San Francesco must soon explain the everlasting sway he holds, now, as in those first years when his work seemed little short of miraculous to the wondering Florentines. [Illustration: PLAN OF THE LOWER CHURCH AND MONASTERY OF SAN FRANCESCO AT ASSISI]