Not far from our hotel is the Church of S. Maria dell' Arnea, so called from its standing near the ruins of an old Roman amphitheatre. It is a plain Gothic building, designed by Giotto when quite young, and contains his wonderful frescoes. Dante was living with him at this time.
The interior of the church—often called Giotto's Chapel—is somewhat cold and bare at first sight; but the beauty of the paintings, which are in a very fair state of preservation, considering their age, speedily dispels this idea. The frescoes represent the history of the Virgin from the rejection of Joachim's sacrifice to Mary's bridal procession. Ruskin says, "It can hardly be doubted that Giotto had a peculiar pleasure in dwelling on the circumstances of the shepherd life of the father of the Virgin, owing to its resemblance to that of his own early years."
The Annunciation, the birth, and youth of the Saviour, and the events of His ministry up to His driving the money-changers from the Temple, form a second series; and afterwards the story of His passion and crucifixion. They are most tenderly and beautifully dealt with, conveying deep impressions of this painter's wonderful power, and the concentrated thought and labour he must have bestowed upon his work. There are also allegorical frescoes, representing very appropriately the virtues and vices. The female figures of this artist are singularly graceful.
"The works of Giotto," says a modern writer (Lindesay), "speak most feelingly to the heart in his own peculiar language of dramatic composition; he glances over creation with the eye of love, all the charities of life follow in his steps, and his thoughts are as the breath of the morning. A man of the world, living in it, and loving it, yet with a heart that it could not spoil nor wean from its allegiance to God—'non meno buon Christiano che excellenti pittore,' as Vasari emphatically describes him. His religion breathes of the free air of heaven rather than of the cloister; neither enthusiastic nor superstitious, but practical, manly, and healthy."
One needs go again and again to do full justice to this interesting church, but being exceedingly cold, it is difficult to avoid taking a chill. It is a great pity that all the churches throughout Italy are allowed to be so cold and damp, to the injury of the valuable works of art they contain.
We paid a hasty visit to the Cathedral, which claims Michael Angelo as its architect. Here we admired a beautiful missal in vellum, printed at Venice in 1498; it is full of miniatures. We also saw Rinaldo's bust of Petrarch, who was a Canon of this church.
The Piazza delle Erbe and the Piazza dei Frutti, the quaint-looking vegetable and fruit markets, are situate on either side of the Palazzo della Ragione, celebrated for its vast Hall, with great vaulted ceiling, said to be the largest in the world unsupported by pillars. It measures ninety-one yards in length and thirty in breadth, and is seventy-eight feet high. The inner walls are adorned with frescoes. At the end of the hall is a gigantic wooden horse, built in sections, supposed to have been the model of Donatello for his bronze statue of Gattamelata, or one of the horses of St Mark's at Venice. At one time it was covered with skin to resemble life.
We scarcely did more than catch a glimpse of that ugly pile St Antonio, where the bones of Padua's patron saint repose—the good St. Anthony.
In the Hermitage Church are the tombs of the Carrara family; and in the old Sacristry there is a very beautiful picture of St. John the Baptist, by Guido; also some frescoes and other paintings, but very much spoiled by the damp.
At the Palazzo Trente Papafava, through the kindness of its noble owner, we saw Fasolata's most beautiful piece of sculpture, the Fallen Angels. It is a solid block of white Carrara marble about five feet high, and represents the angels cast out from heaven, a group of sixty-five to seventy figures. "They are in all attitudes that the human form could take in such a headlong descent, and are so animated in appearance that they are almost flying. Each angel is separate from the rest, but the whole are twisted and twined together in a complicated manner, and are most exquisitely chiselled, even in the minutest part. The wonder is how the sculptor reached the inner portion of the group. The archangel Michael forms the top of the pyramid."