[19] This grille is worthy of especial notice. Instead of being hard and stiff, it is all linked together, so that it is more like a piece of chain mail than of iron railing. Its intricacy adds manifold to the effect of the group of tombs which it half conceals.
[20] I need hardly say that all this is changed, and I hope changed for the better. The city looks more thriving than it did, and more of the old mansions are properly occupied than was the case in the time of the Austrians.
[21] This cloister is said to have been built in 1123. This is, I think, at least fifty years earlier than its real date.
[22] The sculptor of this work left his name—Adaminus—on the capital.
[23] The most important of these is the interesting church of San Stefano in the suburb on the opposite side of the Adige. It has been much modernized, but has still, I believe, an early crypt and an octagonal steeple over the crossing of the same age as San Zenone.
[24] See also ‘Pietro Brandolese, Scultura, Pittura, &c., di Padova.’ Padova, 1795.
[25] Since this was written the whole of these subjects have been published by the Arundel Society, and Mr. Ruskin’s notice of them has also been given to us: they are very valuable as exemplifying, as well perhaps as colourless engravings can do, the exceeding value and originality of this series of paintings. It is to be wished that they may produce some effect upon the minds of our modern artists, who much require to take home to themselves the lesson of sincerity and earnestness of purpose, combined with the highest kind of subject, which Giotto so eminently exhibits in all his works. An extremely good series of photographs of the whole of these paintings may now also be obtained in Venice.
[26] The order of the planets attached to the seven ages is as follows:—I. The Moon. II. Mercury. III. Venus. IV. The Sun. V. Mars. VI. Jupiter. VII. Saturn.
[27] This is the tradition, but it is one which is not, I think, supported either by documentary evidence or by the style of the building. Nicola left Padua four years before the church was commenced; and Fra. Carello is mentioned in the archives of the convent as one of the architects, of whom no doubt there were several before the work was finished.
[28] The eastern chapel and dome are comparatively modern, and the coverings of the other domes appear to be also modern; but I suppose they follow the old outline.