They are in all probability the work of Taddeo Gaddi, or one of his pupils; but this is hardly the place to enter upon the discussion of their authorship, further than to explain it not to belong to the hand of Giotto.
In the chapel of the Castellani, in the Santa Croce, is the crucifix generally ascribed to Giotto by Lord Lindsay and other writers, but it is difficult to discover any ground, save such as is derived from popular tradition, for such an assumption. The lines of the figure are stiff and formal, the colour lifeless and heavy, and the whole work seems to belong to the Sienese school in the character of the design. It should be noted that this work is set far back behind a double row of huge pewter candlesticks, and great branches of artificial flowers, and is placed immediately beneath the only window that lights the chapel, so that it is impossible to speak with certainty of the merits of the colouring. A curious instance of the difficulty of deciding a work to be by Giotto on account of the merit or originality of the design is to be seen in this very chapel, where there are seven frescoes on the right of the crucifix, by Agnolo Gaddi, which are full of so-called Giottesque traits. Very evidently Giotto's influence was in the air, and the very winds of heaven seem to have carried the matter. In the Baroncelli Chapel we have an opportunity of comparing undoubted works by Taddeo Gaddi with those frescoes in the Upper Church at Assisi, which I have refused to consider as Giotto's; but if these Florentine ones be by the same hand it has undoubtedly advanced in skill; the architecture, especially, is of a considerably more elaborate character, and is more akin to that of the Lower Church at Assisi. It must be noticed too that there is in these Gaddi frescoes, more observation of nature than in those of the Upper Church; in one composition alone are there no less than four different species of trees introduced into the background; orange, palm, a species of laurel, and a round-topped tree, which might be anything from a sycamore to a cedar. Various characteristics of Giotto's works are to be traced in these frescoes; the colouring is evidently an unsuccessful imitation, and gesture and action are used somewhat overmuch, without helping to tell the story, as we can fancy would be done by one trying to follow Giotto's method.
CHAPTER VIII.
GIOTTO AT PADUA.
"These temples grew as grows the grass:
Art might obey, but not surpass;
The passive master lent his hand
To the vast soul that o'er him planned,
And the same power that built the shrine
O'erspread the tribes that knelt therein."—Emerson.
Fancy a wet, cloudy, spring day in an old Italian town; the only objects visible in the little grass-grown square where the hotel stands, being two or three mournful carriages, with the sorriest steeds harnessed to them, that even Italian feeding can produce, and surrounding these, houses of mildewed stone, faced occasionally with brown plaster, large flakes of which are peeling off in every direction. The drivers have long since given up all hope of even a stray tourist, and ensconced themselves in the low wine-shop that you may see at the corner of the square, whence the sound of their voices and the smoke of their cigars, break forth occasionally into the heavy atmosphere.