[56] I may perhaps mention that Mr. Fairfax Murray, who accompanied me to the Bargello, and gave me his valuable opinion as to the authorship of the frescoes, also felt certain of Giotto only having painted one or two of the number.
[57] See [note] at the end of this chapter for Ruskin's account of the chapel's use and its founder.
[58] I beg the custodian's pardon, for on going to the chapel again this year, I find that it is the Royal Society of Api-Culture who are responsible for the dozen or so of hives.
[59] It would take me at least a page to justify and define this assertion. I must trust my readers to understand that it is written in no depreciation of later artists, and that it only refers to colour as seen in light, scarcely modified at all by shade.
[60] Throughout this book I have purposely avoided, wherever it was possible, long descriptions of the subject matter of the pictures mentioned. The almost inevitable tendency of such description, unless it is done with the greatest reticence as well as skill, is to withdraw the reader's attention from the artist, either to the author or the subject spoken of, and as my main endeavour in writing this book has been to bring the peculiarities of the artist into constant prominence, it would have defeated my purpose to enter into descriptive writing.
[61] See [Lower Church of Assisi, Chapter X].
[62] See [Chapter on the Lower Church of Assisi], p. 111.
[63] Almost the only artist who ever thoroughly vanquished the difficulty of representing the Last Supper, without stiffness of arrangement, was Tintoretto in his great picture in the Scuola San Rocco. The celebrated Leonardo fresco at Milan of this subject suffers in a measure from the same difficulty as Giotto's work, though in a less degree.
[64] A small portion of this chapter appeared in the Spectator last year under the title of "The Shrine of Poverty," and is here reprinted by the kind permission of the editors of that paper.
[65] I may as well mention that the hotel given by Bradshaw, though the largest, is very poor in its accommodation, and the visitor would probably do better to go to the Albergo Subasio close to the monastery.