19. The Lamb, with the symbol of Resurrection.
Over the door: 'I am the door;—by me, if any man enter in,' etc. Put to the right of the tower, you see, fearlessly, for the convenience of staircase ascent; all external symmetry being subject with the great builders to interior use; and then, out of the rightly ordained infraction of formal law, comes perfect beauty; and when, as here, the Spirit of Heaven is working with the designer, his thoughts are suggested in truer order, by the concession to use. After this sculpture comes the Christian arts,—those which necessarily imply the conviction of immortality. Astronomy without Christianity only reaches as far as—'Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels—and put all things under His feet':—Christianity says beyond this,—'Know ye not that we shall judge angels (as also the lower creatures shall judge us!)' [Footnote: In the deep sense of this truth, which underlies all the bright fantasy and humour of Mr. Courthope's "Paradise of Birds," that rhyme of the risen spirit of Aristophanes may well be read under the tower of Giotto, beside his watch-dog of the fold.] The series of sculptures now beginning, show the arts which can only be accomplished through belief in Christ.
20. Geometry.
Not 'mathematics': they have been implied long ago in astronomy and architecture; but the due Measuring of the Earth and all that is on it. Actually done only by Christian faith—first inspiration of the great Earth-measurers. Your Prince Henry of Spain, your Columbus, your Captain Cook, (whose tomb, with the bright artistic invention and religious tenderness which are so peculiarly the gifts of the nineteenth century, we have just provided a fence for, of old cannon open-mouthed, straight up towards Heaven—your modern method of symbolizing the only appeal to Heaven of which the nineteenth century has left itself capable—'The voice of thy Brother's blood crieth to me'—your outworn cannon, now silently agape, but sonorous in the ears of angels with that appeal)—first inspiration, I say, of these; constant inspiration of all who set true landmarks and hold to them, knowing their measure; the devil interfering, I observe, lately in his own way, with the Geometry of Yorkshire, where the landed proprietors, [Footnote: I mean no accusation against any class; probably the one-fielded statesman is more eager for his little gain of fifty yards of grass than the squire for his bite and sup out of the gypsy's part of the roadside. But it is notable enough to the passing traveller, to find himself shut into a narrow road between high stone dykes which he can neither see over nor climb over, (I always deliberately pitch them down myself, wherever I need a gap,) instead of on a broad road between low grey walls with all the moor beyond—and the power of leaping over when he chooses in innocent trespass for herb, or view, or splinter of grey rock.] when the neglected walls by the roadside tumble down, benevolently repair the same, with better stonework, outside always of the fallen heaps;—which, the wall being thus built on what was the public road, absorb themselves, with help of moss and time, into the heaving swells of the rocky field-and behold, gain of a couple of feet—along so much of the road as needs repairing operations.
This then, is the first of the Christian sciences: division of land rightly, and the general law of measuring between wisely-held compass points. The type of mensuration, circle in square, on his desk, I use for my first exercise in the laws of Fésole.
21. Sculpture.
The first piece of the closing series on the north side of the Campanile, of which some general points must be first noted, before any special examination.
The two initial ones, Sculpture and Painting, are by tradition the only ones attributed to Giotto's own hand. The fifth, Song, is known, and recognizable in its magnificence, to be by Luca della Robbia. The remaining four are all of Luca's school,—later work therefore, all these five, than any we have been hitherto examining, entirely different in manner, and with late flower-work beneath them instead of our hitherto severe Gothic arches. And it becomes of course instantly a vital question—Did Giotto die leaving the series incomplete, only its subjects chosen, and are these two bas-reliefs of Sculpture and Painting among his last works? or was the series ever completed, and these later bas-reliefs substituted for the earlier ones, under Luca's influence, by way of conducting the whole to a grander close, and making their order more representative of Florentine art in its fulness of power?
I must repeat, once more, and with greater insistence respecting Sculpture than Painting, that I do not in the least set myself up for a critic of authenticity,—but only of absolute goodness. My readers may trust me to tell them what is well done or ill; but by whom, is quite a separate question, needing for any certainty, in this school of much-associated masters and pupils, extremest attention to minute particulars not at all bearing on my objects in teaching.
Of this closing group of sculptures, then, all I can tell you is that the fifth is a quite magnificent piece of work, and recognizably, to my extreme conviction, Luca della Robbia's; that the last, Harmonia, is also fine work; that those attributed to Giotto are fine in a different way,—and the other three in reality the poorest pieces in the series, though done with much more advanced sculptural dexterity.