For that is indeed the teaching, if you could receive it, of the Tower of Giotto; as of all Christian art in its day. Next to declaration of the facts of the Gospel, its purpose, (often in actual work the eagerest,) was to show the power of the Gospel. History of Christ in due place; yes, history of all He did, and how He died: but then, and often, as I say, with more animated imagination, the showing of His risen presence in granting the harvests and guiding the labour of the year. All sun and rain, and length or decline of days received from His hand; all joy, and grief, and strength, or cessation of labour, indulged or endured, as in His sight and to His glory. And the familiar employments of the seasons, the homely toils of the peasant, the lowliest skills of the craftsman, are signed always on the stones of the Church, as the first and truest condition of sacrifice and offering.
Of these representations of human art under heavenly guidance, the series of bas-reliefs which stud the base of this tower of Giotto's must be held certainly the chief in Europe. [Footnote: For account of the series on the main archivolt of St. Mark's, see my sketch of the schools of Venetian sculpture in third forthcoming number of 'St. Mark's Rest.'] At first you may be surprised at the smallness of their scale in proportion to their masonry; but this smallness of scale enabled the master workmen of the tower to execute them with their own hands; and for the rest, in the very finest architecture, the decoration of most precious kind is usually thought of as a jewel, and set with space round it,—as the jewels of a crown, or the clasp of a girdle. It is in general not possible for a great workman to carve, himself, a greatly conspicuous series of ornament; nay, even his energy fails him in design, when the bas-relief extends itself into incrustation, or involves the treatment of great masses of stone. If his own does not, the spectator's will. It would be the work of a long summer's day to examine the over-loaded sculptures of the Certosa of Pavia; and yet in the tired last hour, you would be empty-hearted. Read but these inlaid jewels of Giotto's once with patient following; and your hour's study will give you strength for all your life. So far as you can, examine them of course on the spot; but to know them thoroughly you must have their photographs: the subdued colour of the old marble fortunately keeps the lights subdued, so that the photograph may be made more tender in the shadows than is usual in its renderings of sculpture, and there are few pieces of art which may now be so well known as these, in quiet homes far away.
We begin on the western side. There are seven sculptures on the western, southern, and northern sides: six on the eastern; counting the Lamb over the entrance door of the tower, which divides the complete series into two groups of eighteen and eight. Itself, between them, being the introduction to the following eight, you must count it as the first of the terminal group; you then have the whole twenty-seven sculptures divided into eighteen and nine.
Thus lettering the groups on each side for West, South, East, and North, we have:
W. S. E. N.
7 + 7 + 6 + 7 = 27; or,
W. S. E.
7 + 7 + 4 = 18; and,
E. N.
2 + 7 = 9
There is a very special reason for this division by nines but, for convenience' sake, I shall number the whole from 1 to 27, straightforwardly. And if you will have patience with me, I should like to go round the tower once and again; first observing the general meaning and connection of the subjects and then going back to examine the technical points in each, and such minor specialties as it may be well, at the first time, to pass over.
1. The series begins, then, on the west side, with the Creation of Man. It is not the beginning of the story of Genesis; but the simple assertion that God made us, and breathed, and still breathes, into our nostrils the breath of life.
This, Giotto tells you to believe as the beginning of all knowledge and all power. [Footnote: So also the Master-builder of the Ducal Palace of Venice. See Fors Clavigera for June of this year.] This he tells you to believe, as a thing which he himself knows.
He will tell you nothing but what he does know.
2. Therefore, though Giovanna Pisano and his fellow sculptors had given, literally, the taking of the rib out of Adam's side, Giotto merely gives the mythic expression of the truth he knows,—"they two shall be one flesh."