The little Arena chapel at Padua is completely covered by frescoes of Giotto, which are amongst the finest examples of his work to be found out of Florence. The subjects represent the history of Christ and of the Virgin, the former being much more admirable; indeed, some of the subjects, especially the Crucifixion and the Pietá, will compare with any of the master’s work. The two bachelors were a long time looking at and admiring these frescoes, and that they were allowed to do so alone added not a little to their enjoyment. One pays a fee for seeing the Arena chapel, and is given a plan and description of the paintings. This is a great advantage, for it renders the attendance of a guide superfluous, and one is excused the attendance of a dirty little garlic-smelling man, who keeps up an incessant chattering in bad French or execrable English, half of which one does not understand, and the other half Bædeker tells far better.
Having but a short time to see Padua, we tried to find our way at once to the famous church of St. Antonio, known as “Il Santo”; we, however, took about three hours to do so, during which time we saw many interesting churches, some containing frescoes.
The two great painters of this city were the before-mentioned Mantegna, and Squarcione, the founder of the Paduan school. The work of both these painters is remarkable for its scholarly character, to be accounted for from the fact of Padua being the seat of a great university (founded as early as 1238), which attracted learned men from all parts of Europe; and naturally the school of art was influenced by the conflux of scholars and scientific men, which made Padua so important a city in the Middle Ages.
Nearly all the streets in Padua are flanked with arcades, which add much to the picturesqueness of its thoroughfares. We, of course, sought out Il Salone, the palace celebrated for its huge hall, said to be the largest unsupported by columns in the world. The walls of this hall are completely covered with frescoes, nearly 400 in number, more remarkable for their strange subjects than their value as works of art. At one end of the hall is a huge wooden horse; very ugly, the bachelors thought, though it was designed by the great Florentine, Donatello.
After seeing Il Salone the bachelors wandered about for an hour or so, and at last came in sight of the monstrous church of St. Antonio. As this is the work of the greatest architect of the Gothic period in Italy, Nicolo Pisano, we suppose that we ought to have been much struck by it; but we confess that we were not, at any rate by its exterior. The domes, seven in number, bear a most unfortunate resemblance to so many dish-covers, and the kind of circular drums or towers on which they are placed have a kind of truncated look, as if they have been cut short, and were intended to have been much higher.
The west front, though adorned with Gothic arcades, has a bald, sprawling look about it, and does not seem to “fit” the church properly. The sides of the building, moreover, are positively ugly, and there is only one point from which it really looks well, and that is a garden near the east end, where the domes are seen rising up over a group of trees.
The first impression of the interior is rather one of baldness, but when one arrives halfway up the church, and the exquisite chapel of St. Antonio in one of the transepts, a most lovely work by Sansovino, and the very beautiful Gothic altar and screen in the opposite transept are opened out to the view, the first impression is at once corrected.
Perhaps in the whole of Italy there is not to be found a more perfect example of the Renaissance than the exquisite chapel of St. Antonio. It opens from the transept by five arches, the detail and proportion of which are simply perfect. On the opposite wall are five similarly-treated blank arches, filled in with extremely elaborate bas-reliefs, beneath the centre of which is the altar. A semicircular barrelled vault, adorned with detail, perfectly bewildering from its intricacy and delicacy, covers the space between the two arcades. It is certainly a matter for regret that the Renaissance architecture of Italy did not stand still at this beautiful epoch, instead of developing into the wildness and eccentricity of the later school.
On emerging from St. Antonio the bachelors were astonished to find the sky overcast, and to notice the suspicious gusts of wind which generally precede a storm. The latter, however, did not approach Padua, but contented itself by grumbling about in the distant Alps. We were only too glad to be spared its visitation, especially as we were anxious to have a moonlight night by which to form our first impression of Venice.
Scarcely any Englishman ever visits Italy without bothering his friends about his first impression of Venice. But in all probability these first impressions are not formed from the place itself, but from photographs purchased in Oxford-street.