Therefore we look back across the centuries with pleasure, to catch a glimpse of the homely figure whose dreams of beauty were mingled with tenderness and mirth, who lived in a coarse age, and made coarse jokes at odd times; but who walked hand in hand with Dante, as great, if not as sublime a genius, and whose life, as we can read it in his paintings, was one of sympathy with all things living, and perfect devotion to his art. Neither a Philistine, nor a humbug, he seems to have trod the narrow path of art with secure footsteps, a good workman, as well as a great imaginative painter; a merry as well as an honest man. Such are the men whom Art wants nowadays, as it wanted them then, those who are men as well as artists, who will not dream in courtly isolation of beauties which never existed, but will go down into the markets, and the streets, where men sin and sorrow, or by the rivers and fields, where they toil and hope, and use their genius to brighten the facts of every day, to interpret the strange gleams of beauty, which fall here and there upon a weary world.

I like to think that that Campanile of "porphyry and jasper" was not raised by one who dwelt amidst cold dreams of architectural proportion and gave his life to the designing of geometrical ornament, but by the man who could feel the humour of the dog, the patience of the oxen, and love to have such things carved about the base of his tower; and as I sit here in its very shadow, it seems to me as if the most fitting meed of praise with which to conclude an essay on the old painter, is, not that he painted the purest and loveliest frescoes in the world; not that he raised above Florence a tower, which has been the wonder and delight of all succeeding ages, but that he was the first to show by his work, that Art was useful to man, not only as a teacher, but as a friend.

INDEX.

PAGE
Annunciation. By Giotto,[59]
Arena Chapel, Padua[69]
"Frescoes in[76]
"Note by Mr. Ruskin on[84]
Arnolfo di Cambio[21]
Arnolfo di Lapi (Cambio?)[21]
Assisi, Lower Church of[111]
Assisi, Upper Church of[94]
Byzantine Architecture[15]
Campanile, The, at Florence[135]
Cennini[29]
Christian Architecture[16]
Cimabue[33]
Coronation of the Virgin. By Giotto[128]
Florence, Santa Croce[65], [66], [118], [128]
"Santa Maria Novella[65], [133]
"Campanile at[135]
Fresco Painting[28]
Frescoes in Arena Chapel, Padua[76]
Frescoes at Assisi[115], [124]
Frescoes in Santa Croce[128]
Frescoes in Santa Maria Novella[133]
Giotto, born at Vespignano (1266?)[41]
"taken by Cimabue to Florence[43]
"story of his O[45]
"visits Rome[45]
"returns to Florence,[46]
"paints portrait of Dante[46]
"marries Ciuta di Lapo[47]
"frescoes in the Arena Chapel at Padua[47]
"paints a buckler[49]
"visits Assisi[51]
"frescoes in Santa Croce, Florence[51]
"designs the Campanile, Florence[52]
"dies at Florence in 1336[52]
"latest works of[120]
Giunta of Pisa[23], [100]
Greek Art[12]
Guido of Siena[38]
Illuminated Manuscripts[14]
Lombardic Architecture[24]
Madonna Enthroned. By Cimabue[36]
Madonna Enthroned. By Giotto[59], [63]
Mosaics[13], [21]
Navicella, The[45], [62]
Padua, Arena Chapel at[61]
Painting, Chief function of[53]
Pisa, Campo Santo of[61]
Pisano, Andrea[139]
Pisano, Niccolo[20]
Robbia, Luca della[139]
Ruskin, John[24], [84]
Scrovegni Chapel at Padua[69]
Venice, Saint Mark's[22], [27], [112]

THE END.

R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS. BREAD STREET HILL, E.C.

Published in Monthly Volumes.

A NEW SERIES OF
ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHIES OF
THE GREAT ARTISTS.

The increasing love of art in our own country and the great desire for knowledge in all matters connected with the literature of art and the lives of the Great Masters called for the publication of the very important information which modern research has gathered together on every side, and which has now attracted the attention of all students of art-biography both at home and abroad.