Although the two remaining frescoes deal with the death and
resurrection of a child, they probably have nothing to do with the
Spini miracle; the one where the dead child is lying in the arms of
two men has unfortunately been so repainted as to take all character
away from the faces, and we can only admire the general grouping, the
fine gestures of the weeping women, and the grand modelling of the
figures. Only a great artist could make one feel, by such simple
means, the strain of the dead weight upon the men's arms. The man to
the left (the second from the one holding his finger to his chin) is
believed to be the portrait of Giotto; if it is, the painter has not
flattered himself, and we can believe Dante's tale that he was
remarkably ugly, and had six hideous children. On the other side of
the arch the legend continues; a procession of white-robed monks and
sorrowing friends approach the house to which the child has been
taken, but in the meantime St. Francis has called him back to life,
and a man, evidently in great excitement over the miracle, is hurrying
down the steps to announce what has occurred. The story is so well and
simply told that, although we have failed to find any account of it,
it is easy to understand the sequence of the two frescoes, and the
events they relate.
_Allegories by Giotto in the ceiling over the High Altar._--The task
was now given to Giotto to depict by the medium of allegory the three
virtues of the franciscan order and St. Francis in glory. These
virtues, the rocks upon which the franciscan order was so securely
founded, had been preached by St. Francis to the people of Italy with
the extraordinary results we have seen, and now Giotto came to take up
the theme and, by means of his immortal art, perpetuate it as long as
the great basilica lasts, and pilgrims come to pray and read upon the
walls, in a language even the unlettered can understand, the lessons
taught by the Umbrian preacher seven centuries ago. Apart from the
fact of his genius, it was a fortunate thing that he should have been
chosen for the task. A man of weaker and more impressionable
temperament might have been led into such exaggerations of feeling and
sentiment as we find in the Lorenzetti frescoes of the transept.
Giotto came not many years after the Flagellants, roaming in hordes
through the land calling for mercy and beating their half-naked bodies
with leathern thongs, had spread a spirit of fanaticism which
threatened to destroy the healthy influence of the teaching of St.
Francis. But the mountain-born painter, impervious to such influences,
kept his faith pure amidst the turmoil and unrest; and much as he
admired the saint (it is said he belonged to the Third order), he
looked upon his teaching from the practical point of view and was by
no means carried away by the poetical manner in which it had been
presented to the people. Nothing shows the mind and character of
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