Giotto, an artist before he was a moralist, undertook to carry out the wishes of his patrons, and thought only how he could best fill the triangular spaces of the ceiling with the figures of saints and angels. It was by no means an easy task, but Giotto succeeded so well that these four frescoes are reckoned among his masterpieces and the wonders of the thirteenth century. They certainly show a marked advance upon the earlier works in the Transept, but they lack the power and assurance of those in the Upper Church, where the youthful painter all but reached the zenith of his fame.
The Marriage of St. Francis and Poverty.[76]—In this fresco Giotto has represented three incidents, but just as they all refer to one subject, so do the figures form a perfect harmony, faultless as decoration and beautiful as a picture. A youth, imitating the charity of St. Francis to whom his guardian angel is pointing, is seen on the left giving his cloak to a beggar, while upon the other side, a miser clutching his money-bag and a youth with a falcon on his gloved hand refuse to listen to the good suggestions of an angel and of the friar who stands between them. The lines of decoration are further carried out by the two angels who fly up carrying a temple with an enclosed garden, perhaps symbolising Charity, and a franciscan habit, which may be the symbol of Obedience. But these are details and the eye does not rest upon them, but rather is carried straight into the midst of a court of attendant angels where Christ, standing upon a rock, gives the hand of St. Francis to the Lady Poverty, who slightly draws away as if in warning of the hardships and disillusions in store for him who links his life with hers. Cold and white, her garments torn by a network of accacia thorns, she is indeed the true widow of Christ, who, after His death as Dante says,
". . . . . . slighted and obscure
Thousand and hundred years and more, remain'd
Without a single suitor, till he came."[77]
The bridesmaids, Hope pointing to the sky, and Charity holding a heart and crowned with flowers that start into tiny flames, come floating out of the choir of angels towards the pale bride whose veil is bounded only by her hair. Heedless of the children of earth, who encouraged by the barking of a dog, press the thorns still deeper into her flesh, she gazes at St. Francis, and shows him the pink and white roses of paradise and the Madonna lilies which are flowering behind her wings.
Chastity.—The different stages of perfection in the religious life are portrayed in this allegory. To the left St. Francis welcomes three aspirants to the order—Bernard of Quintavalle—typifying the franciscans; St. Clare—the Second Order; and one, who is said to be the poet Dante, in the near foreground in a florentine dress of the period—the Third Order. Two angels in the central group impose hands and pour the purifying water upon the head of a youth standing naked in a font, and two other angels bend forward with the franciscan habits in their hands, while leaning over the wall of the fortress are two figures, one presenting the banner of purity the other the shield of fortitude to the novice. On either side stands a grey-bearded, mail-clad warrior, lash and shield in hand to denote the perpetual warfare and self-mortification of those who follow St. Francis. To the right three youthful warrior-monks, beautiful of feature, bearing the signs of the Passion in their hands, aided by one in the garb of a Penitent with angels' wings, are chasing away the tempting spirits of the flesh from the rocks about the fortress into the abyss below. The winged boar falls backwards, followed by a demon and a winged skeleton emblematic of the perpetual death of the wicked, while poor blindfolded Love writhes beneath the lash of Penitence. But just as he is about to spring down with the rest, his string of human hearts still slung across his shoulders, he snatches up a sprig of roses from the rocks.
Above, out of a walled enclosure guarded at each end by towers like every mediæval castle on the hills about Italian towns, rises a crenulated fortress. At the open window of the magnificent central tower is seen Chastity, veiled and in prayer as if unconscious of the scene below, her vigilance typified by the bell o'erhead. She appears to be reading, by the light of a taper, from the open book held before her by an angel, while another is bringing her the palm of sanctity. They are no longer Giotto's bird-like creations, but stately messengers with splendid human forms uplifted by outstretched wings their garments brought into long curved lines by the rapidity of their flight.
Obedience.—Under an open loggia sits the winged figure of Obedience in the habit of a franciscan, holding his finger to his lips as he places a wooden yoke (symbol of obedience) upon the neck of a kneeling friar. Prudence, with double face, holding a glass mirror and a compass, and Humility, with her lighted taper to illumine the path to paradise, are seated on either side, perhaps to show that he who imposes obedience upon others must be prudent and humble himself. An angel upon the right is pointing these virtues out to a centaur (symbolizing pride, envy and avarice), who, thrown back upon his haunches by a ray of light from the mirror of Prudence, is thus stopped from tempting away the young novice kneeling on the opposite side, encouraged in his act of renunciation by the angel who holds him firmly by the wrist. Two divine hands appear from the clouds above and are holding St. Francis by his yoke, while two angels unroll the rules of his order.
The Glory of St. Francis.—The throng of fair-haired angels, seem, as they move towards the throne of the saint and press around it, to be intoning a hymn of perpetual praise and jubilation. Their figures, against the dull gold background, are seen white and strong, with here and there a touch of mauve or pale blue in their garments bringing out more distinctly the feeling of light and joyousness. The perpetual movement of the heavenly choir, some blowing long trumpets, others playing on flutes and tambourines, while many gaze upwards in silent prayer as they float upon the clouds, contrasts strangely with the stiff and silent figure of St. Francis, who in his robe of gold and black brocade, a brilliant light behind him, looks like some marvellous eastern deity, recalling Dante's words of how he