The Story of Assisi 7

	The Story of Assisi 7

Both Francesco di Terranuova and Valentino da Udine were employed to repair all the windows about 1476, large sums being expended, principally by the Popes who never ceased to patronise the franciscan Basilica. A most comical appearance is given by the distressing additions made in our own time of modern heads upon bodies of the thirteenth or fourteenth century. Until very lately an exquisite rose window was to be seen over the eastern door, now replaced by white glass; one would like to know how it so mysteriously disappeared and where it now is. No pains had been spared to make San Francesco as lovely in every detail as the brain of man could devise, and it is most remarkable how the frescoes belong to the general idea of the building as though every artist had thought as much of this unity as of the individual perfection of his work. The beautiful papal throne in the choir, of white marble encrusted in mosaic with its frieze of strange animals in low relief, its arms supported by red marble lions, is almost a replica of the Soldan's throne in Giotto's fresco, and was designed by Fuccio Fiorentino in 1347, when the architecture that Giotto delighted in was still the recognised style in Italy.[72] The marble and mosaic altar is of the same date, and the octagonal pulpit of sculptured stone, with saints in small tabernacles, spiral columns and designs of leaves slightly tinted, supposed also to be by Fuccio, is placed at the corner of the wall of the nave looking as if it had grown there. The columns supporting the arched gallery round the church have each been painted to represent mauve and rose-coloured marbles, and there is not a single space in all the building which has not been decorated to harmonise with the frescoes, giving a perfect sense of infinite completeness and beauty, to which time has added by mellowing everything into a pale orange colour--the colour of Assisi. FOOTNOTES: [68] It is difficult to say how free a hand the artists were allowed when called in to execute work for any church, but probably, in the case of San Francesco, they were obliged to illustrate precisely the scenes and events chosen by the friars, who in the case of the saint's legend would be very severe judges, requiring quite the best that the artist could produce. [69] Later documents of the convent speak of a crucifix painted in 1236 by Giunta Pisano with a portrait of Brother Elias "taken from life" and the following inscription:      Frater Elias fieri fecit      Jesu Christe pie      Misere pecantis Helie      Giunta Pisanus me pinxit. A.D.M. MCCXXXVI. It hung from a beam in the Upper Church until 1624 when it suddenly disappeared, and it seems to have inspired Padre Angeli (author of the "Collis Paradisi") with the theory that Giunta Pisano was the first to paint in San Francesco, ascribing to him, as some have continued to do, the frescoes in the choir and transept of the Upper Church. Messrs Crowe and Cavacaselle say, on what authority it is impossible to discover, that the middle aisle of the Lower Church "seems to have been painted between 1225 and 1250," ignoring the fact that Pope Gregory only laid the foundation stone of the Basilica in 1228. Without trying to find such early dates for the history of art at Assisi, it appears to us quite wonderful enough that some fifty or sixty years after the ceremony of the consecration in 1253, Cimabue and his contemporaries--Giotto and his Tuscan followers--had completed their work in both churches. [70] _Right_ transept is always synonymous with _South_ transept, but in this case, as San Francesco is built with the altar facing to the west because it was necessary to have the entrance away from the precipitous side of the hill, the _Right_ transept looks to the _North_, the _Left_ to the _South_, and we have thought it easier to keep to the actual position of the church in describing the different frescoes. Herr Thode in his book has done this, but it may be well to observe that Messrs Crowe and Cavacaselle refer to the transepts and chapels as if they faced the parts of the compass in the usual way. [71] To facilitate seeing the paintings of the ceiling, both here and in the Lower Church, it would be well to use a hand-glass, a simple and most effectual addition to the comfort of the traveller. [72] Mr Ruskin says that the gable of the bishop's throne is "of the exact period when the mosaic workers of the thirteenth century at Rome adopted rudely the masonry of the north. Briefly this is a Greek temple pediment, in which, doubtful of their power to carve figures beautiful enough, they cut a trefoiled hold for ornament, and bordered the edge with a harlequinade of mosaic. They then call to their aid the Greek sea waves, and let the surf of the Ægean climb along the slopes, and toss itself at the top into a fleur-de-lys." CHAPTER VI _The Paintings of Giotto and his School in the Lower Church_              "... Cimabue thought      To lord it over painting's field; and now      The cry is Giotto's, and his name eclipsed."        DANTE, _Purgatory_, xi., Cary's translation. The work of Cimabue, grand and noble as it is, yet gives the impression of belonging to remote times, between which and that of Giotto, his pupil, a great gulf is set. In both churches at Assisi we pass from the early efforts of an awakening age to the work of one, who, if not the first to see the light, was the first to discover the true principles of art, to give it life, and to found a school whence a long series of painters came to carry on for generations the lessons he had taught. Cimabue did wonders for the century in which he lived; of Giotto, even granting that his drawing was sometimes faulty, and the types of faces he painted were not always beautiful, it would be an insult to express such condescending praise; and even a hasty study of his frescoes in San Francesco must soon explain the everlasting sway he holds, now, as in those first years when his work seemed little short of miraculous to the wondering Florentines.   [Illustration: PLAN OF THE LOWER CHURCH AND MONASTERY OF SAN FRANCESCO   AT ASSISI] Some fourteen miles to the north of Florence, among the hills of the Mugello, lies the scattered hamlet of Vespignano where Giotto Bondone was born of a poor peasant family in the year 1265. Even at an early age, Vasari says, the boy was remarkable for the vivacity and quick intelligence which endeared him not only to his parents, but to all who knew him in the village and country round. He passed his childhood among them, knowing nothing of the city just across the hills, but learning much, during the long days while he wandered forth to tend his father's sheep, which was helpful to him in after years to preserve his straightforward outlook upon life and the strength and freshness of a nature that loved the sunburnt valleys and the freedom of the shepherd's existence. When Giotto was ten years old it happened that Cimabue, on his way from Florence to Vespignano upon a matter of business, found him seated by the roadside, his flock gathered near, busily employed in drawing the outline of a sheep from life upon a smooth piece of rock. Struck by the boy's industry in the pursuit of art and his evident cleverness, Cimabue hastened to obtain the father's consent to adopt and make an artist of him. Leaving the old life in the peasant's cottage for ever, Giotto now turned south along new roads, and with Cimabue by his side, saw for the first time the city of Florence, beautiful as she lay upon the banks of the Arno in a setting of wooded hills. The progress he made under Cimabue's guidance, who taught him all he knew, was marvellous indeed. At ten years of age a shepherd tracing idle fancies on the stones, then for a few years an apprentice in a Florentine workshop grinding colours with the others for his master's big Madonnas; while ten years later he had already gained the title of Master and was a famous painter, courted by popes and kings, and leaving masterpieces upon the walls of churches throughout Italy, that people of all times and countries have come and paused awhile to see. Let us suppose it was the air of Florence, which, according to Vasari, "generates a desire for glory and honour and gives a natural quickness to the perceptions of men," that made Giotto a perfect Florentine, alert, witty, and ever ready with a caustic repartee to anyone who bandied words with him. But though other influences were at work around him, and new images crowded upon his active brain, he kept undimmed the vision of his mountain valley, of the fields, of the days spent in his native village, and, with the eyes of a shepherd he continued to look on all the incidents of human life; he saw the grandeur, the tragedy, the weaknesses, aye, and the humour too, in everything that surrounded him, setting it all down in his frescoes in his own simple and original way. In a few words Mr Ruskin has touched upon the keynotes of Giotto's character when he says: ... "his mind was one of the most healthy, kind and active that ever informed a human frame. His love of beauty was entirely free from weakness; his love of truth untinged by severity; his industry constant without impatience; his workmanship accurate without formalism; his temper serene and yet playful; his imagination exhaustive without extravagance; and his faith firm without superstition. I do not know, in the annals of art, such another example of happy, practical, unerring, and benevolent power." Such was the man who came to Assisi to take up the work left uncompleted by Cimabue and his contemporaries. Giotto was then almost unknown, not having executed any of those great works upon which his fame now rests, and it is not unlikely that the recommendation by Cimabue of his promising pupil to the friars of San Francesco led to his being called there when barely twenty years of age.[73] Opinions differ as to which were his first works and whether he began in the Lower or in the Upper Church, and as there are absolutely no documents relating to the subject, and Vasari is of no help in the matter of dates or precise details, the only way to come to any conclusion is to group these frescoes according to their style. We do not wish to force any arbitrary opinions on this matter, and have simply placed Giotto's work in the order that it seems to us more likely to have been executed. Those who disagree have only to transpose the chapters as they think fit. The chief thing is to enjoy the frescoes and speculate as little as possible on all the contradictory volumes written about them. _Right Transept._--According to Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle these frescoes are by Giotto, and Mr Bernhard Berenson is of the opinion that they belong to his early period, and were executed by him before the franciscans knew what his powers were, and whether they could entrust to him the more difficult task of illustrating the legend of St. Francis. The subjects are taken from the early life of Christ which had been depicted many times in preceding centuries, but although Giotto attempted no very elaborate or original manner of treatment, his style was rapidly developing, and we have in some of the scenes little traits of nature which only belong to him. On the outside of the Chapel del Sacramento, over the arch, he painted the Annunciation with such charm, dignity and harmony of outline that it would be difficult to find a more perfect conception of religious feeling even among the pictures of Angelico. Unfortunately it can only be seen in the early afternoon when the light comes in through the windows of S. Giovanni; the Madonna rising with queenly grace and the angel hastening forward with his message then stand out from their dark background like living people, and show how, from the first, Giotto attained the power of giving vitality to his figures. His Madonna is not like a graven image to be worshipped from afar; she is essentially the earthly mother of the Saviour, and Giotto, while treating her story with dignity and a certain sense of remoteness, tells it by the simplest means, endowing her with the maternal tenderness of a young peasant girl whom we meet upon the roads carrying her child to lay beneath the shadow of a tree while she goes to her work in the fields close by.   [Illustration: CHOIR AND TRANSEPTS OF THE LOWER CHURCH] The Visitation (on the same wall as Cimabue's Madonna) is one of those frescoes that we remember like a scene we have witnessed, so naturally does the Virgin move forward, followed by a group of handmaidens, and hold out her arms to greet Elizabeth who is bending with such reverence to salute her cousin. They stand at the entrance of a dainty house inlaid with mosaic which is set among the bare rocks with only a stunted tree here and there. But Giotto does not forget to place a flowering plant in the balcony just as the peasants have always done in his mountain home. It is interesting to compare the next fresco of the Nativity with the same subject in the Upper Church, treated by a follower of Cimabue where the same idea is depicted, but with what a difference. Though two episodes are placed in one picture, Giotto succeeds in giving a harmonious composition, which, if a little stiff and over symmetrical, is full of charm and beauty. The angels singing to the new-born Infant and those apprising the shepherds of the news hover like a flight of birds above the barn. They are in truth the winged spirits of the air, "birds of God" Dante calls them, and thus Giotto paints them. As though to accentuate the sadness and poverty of Christ's birthplace, the barn, all open and exposed to the night breezes, is laid in a lonely landscape with a high rock rising behind it. Beyond in the valley, a leafless tree grows upon the bank of a calm stream where the heavenly light from the angels is seen to play like moonbeams in its waters. Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle hold that the Visit of the Magi was "never painted with more feeling, more naturally or beautifully composed than here"; and Giotto must have felt he could add little to the perfection of the scene when in later years he painted the same subject at Padua. All interest is centred on the Child, who, bending forward from the Virgin's arms, lays a tiny hand in blessing upon the head of the aged king. Curiously enough St. Joseph has been forgotten, and instead an angel stands upon either side to receive the offerings of the Magi. But to us the Purification seems even more beautiful in sentiment, composition and the perfection of religious feeling. Giotto was the first to conceive the idea of the Infant Jesus turning from Simeon towards the Virgin Mary as if anxious to come back to her, while she holds out her arms to invite him with a naive attitude of gentle motherhood. From charming frescoes like these we come to the grand and powerful scene of the Crucifixion. Every figure tells a different tale of sorrow; of tender pity, as in the group of women round the fainting Virgin; of wonder that Christ should be allowed to suffer, as in the gesture of the woman with arms thrown back and St. John who wrings his hands almost fiercely; of sympathy expressed by the Magdalene, as she kisses the pierced feet; and of hope and prayer, in the kneeling figures of St. Francis and his brethren. Even more vehement in their grief are the angels, who rending their garments fly away with arms stretched out as if unable to bear the sight of so much pain. How rapidly they turn and circle in the air; they are not borne along by the winds, but trusting to their wings they rise with the swift, sure flight of a swallow.[74] Upon the opposite wall the early life of the Virgin is continued with the Flight into Egypt, which bears a strong resemblance to the fresco at Padua. There is the same sense that St. Joseph, his bundle slung on a stick over his shoulder like a pilgrim, is really walking along and in a moment must disappear from sight; a palm tree bends sideways to the breeze, and above two angels seem to cleave the air as they hurriedly lead on the travellers to exile and safety. Only the Virgin sits calm and unruffled. In the Massacre of the Innocents Giotto has happily not painted the full horror of the scene, but has aimed rather at suggesting the tragedy than at giving its actual representation. Very beautiful are the women to the left mourning for their dead children. One rocks her child in her arms and tries to awaken him with her kisses, whilst another raises her hands in despair as she gazes upon the dead child upon her knees. The Return of the Holy Family from Egypt, though only showing a group of houses within surrounding walls and a gateway and a group of people, suggests better than a more complicated composition would have done the scene of a home-coming after long absence. The Preaching of the Child in the Temple completes the series, and like the one at Padua, it is the least interesting of Giotto's paintings. There are three other frescoes in the Transept which most people, with reason, attribute to Giotto, representing miracles of St. Francis. The first refers to a child of the Spini family of Florence who fell from a tower of the Palazzo Spini (now Feroni), and was being carried to the grave, when the intercession of St. Francis was invoked and he appeared among them to restore the child to life. Part of the fresco has been lost owing to the ruthless way in which the walls were cut into for the purpose of erecting an organ--a barbarous act difficult to understand. But the principal group of people are seen outside an exquisite basilica of marble and mosaic, and each figure can be studied with pleasure as they have not been mutilated by the "restorer's" usual layers of thick paint. Seldom has Giotto painted lovelier women than those kneeling in the foreground, their profiles of delicate and pure outline recalling a border of white flowers. Near them is a figure bearing so strong a resemblance to Dante, that we would fain believe that Giotto meant to represent the type of a true Florentine in a portrait of the poet. Above the staircase is a fine picture of St. Francis resting his hand upon the shoulder of a crowned skeleton "in which," says Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, "a much deeper study of anatomy is revealed than has ever been conceded to Giotto." The oval face of the saint, with clear brown colouring, is very beautiful, strongly resembling the St. Francis in glory in the fresco above the high altar. By him also is the half-length figure of Christ in the vaulting of the window. Although the two remaining frescoes deal with the death and resurrection of a child, they probably have nothing to do with the Spini miracle; the one where the dead child is lying in the arms of two men has unfortunately been so repainted as to take all character away from the faces, and we can only admire the general grouping, the fine gestures of the weeping women, and the grand modelling of the figures. Only a great artist could make one feel, by such simple means, the strain of the dead weight upon the men's arms. The man to the left (the second from the one holding his finger to his chin) is believed to be the portrait of Giotto; if it is, the painter has not flattered himself, and we can believe Dante's tale that he was remarkably ugly, and had six hideous children. On the other side of the arch the legend continues; a procession of white-robed monks and sorrowing friends approach the house to which the child has been taken, but in the meantime St. Francis has called him back to life, and a man, evidently in great excitement over the miracle, is hurrying down the steps to announce what has occurred. The story is so well and simply told that, although we have failed to find any account of it, it is easy to understand the sequence of the two frescoes, and the events they relate. _Allegories by Giotto in the ceiling over the High Altar._--The task was now given to Giotto to depict by the medium of allegory the three virtues of the franciscan order and St. Francis in glory. These virtues, the rocks upon which the franciscan order was so securely founded, had been preached by St. Francis to the people of Italy with the extraordinary results we have seen, and now Giotto came to take up the theme and, by means of his immortal art, perpetuate it as long as the great basilica lasts, and pilgrims come to pray and read upon the walls, in a language even the unlettered can understand, the lessons taught by the Umbrian preacher seven centuries ago. Apart from the fact of his genius, it was a fortunate thing that he should have been chosen for the task. A man of weaker and more impressionable temperament might have been led into such exaggerations of feeling and sentiment as we find in the Lorenzetti frescoes of the transept. Giotto came not many years after the Flagellants, roaming in hordes through the land calling for mercy and beating their half-naked bodies with leathern thongs, had spread a spirit of fanaticism which threatened to destroy the healthy influence of the teaching of St. Francis. But the mountain-born painter, impervious to such influences, kept his faith pure amidst the turmoil and unrest; and much as he admired the saint (it is said he belonged to the Third order), he looked upon his teaching from the practical point of view and was by no means carried away by the poetical manner in which it had been presented to the people. Nothing shows the mind and character of Giotto so plainly as some lines he wrote on poverty, most likely after painting his famous Allegories when he had an opportunity to observe how little the manners and customs of mediæval monks corresponded with the spirit of their founder. Every line of the poem is full of common sense and knowledge of human frailty. Many, Giotto remarks somewhat sarcastically, praise poverty; but he does not himself recommend it as virtue is seldom co-existent with extremes; and voluntary poverty, upon which he touches in a few caustic lines, is the cause of many ills, and rarely brings peace to those who have chosen her as a mate and who too often study how to avoid her company; thus it happens that under the false mantle of the gentlest of lambs appears the fiercest wolf, and by such hypocrisy is the world corrupted.[75]   [Illustration: THE MARRIAGE OF ST. FRANCIS WITH POVERTY   (D. ANDERSON--_photo_)] 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                            "... arose      A sun upon the world, as duly this      From Ganges doth: ..." In the dimness of the cave-like church built to serve the purpose of a tomb and keep men's ideas familiar with the thought of death, these frescoes are glimpses into the heaven of the blest. Watch them at all hours of the day and there will be some new wonder to be noted, a face among the crowd which seems fairer than the rest, or, as the sunshine moves across, a flash of colours in an angel's wing like the sudden coming of a rainbow in a cloudy sky. And who shall forget the strange play of fancy as the candle light, during an afternoon service, mingles with the strong sunshine upon the white figures of saints and the whiter figure of the Lady Poverty, who appear to move towards us from amidst a blaze of golden clouds, until gradually as the evening closes in and the candles go out one by one, they are set once more in the shadow of their backgrounds like so many images of snow. _La Capella del Sacramento, or the Chapel of St. Nicholas._--Giotto left one scholar at Assisi whose work it is easy to discover, but who, as far as name and personality are concerned, is unknown, and shares in the general mystery which surrounds both the builders and painters of San Francesco. All we know is that he followed his master's style and great laws of composition even more closely than Taddeo Gaddi, and that he possessed much charm and originality. By the kind help of Mr Bernhard Berenson we have been able to group together some of the works of this interesting artist, who was evidently working at Assisi between 1300 and 1310 when he executed the last nine frescoes of the Upper Church illustrating the death and the miracles of St. Francis, decorated the Capella del Sacramento in the Lower Church with the legend of St. Nicholas, and painted a fine Crucifixion in the Confraternity of San Rufinuccio (see chap. x). There is a very delightful panel picture also by him in the corridor of the Uffizzi (No. 20 in the corridor), with eight small scenes from the life of St. Cecilia. In a fresco over the arch on the inside of the Capella del Sacramento are portraits of the donors of the chapel, Cardinal Napoleone Orsini, who is being presented to Christ by St. Francis, and his younger brother Giovanni (below him is written Dns Jons Gaetanus frater ejus), presented by St. Nicholas. It helps to date the decoration of the chapel, for we know that Giovanni Orsini received the cardinal's hat in 1316, while here he is represented in the white dress of a deacon confirming the general opinion that these frescoes must have been painted before that date.[78] St. Nicholas of Myra, generally known as St. Nicholas of Bari, both during his life and after his death was forever coming to the assistance of the oppressed; he did not even object to be the patron saint of drunkards and thieves, as well as of maiden virtue. He can easily be recognised in art by the three purses or golden balls which are always placed at his feet, in reference to the first kind action he performed when a wealthy young noble. This incident is charmingly recorded in the chapel upon the right wall near the entrance. Three sleeping maidens are lying by their father's side, and St. Nicholas, who has heard of their poverty, throws in three bags of gold as he passes by the open window. This charitable deed has made him a famous saint; when Dante is in Purgatory he hears the spirit of Hugh Capet recounting various acts of virtuous poverty and generosity, among which                    "... it spake the gift      Of Nicholas, which on the maidens he      Bounteous bestow'd, to save their youthful prime      Unblemish'd...." Below (the picture immediately beneath is entirely obliterated) is a very beautiful composition, recalling the same artist's treatment of St. Clare and her nuns in the Upper Church. In front of a Gothic chapel of white and black marble stands St. Nicholas, between two placid and portly friars, listening to the petition of a despairing father who implores his protection for his three sons, unjustly condemned to death by a wicked consul. The figures of the prisoners, with halters round their necks, followed by sympathising friends, are full of movement and life; St. Nicholas is particularly charming, dressed in his episcopal robes, slightly bending forward and listening attentively to the doleful tale.[79] The legend is continued upon the opposite side, where he arrives just in time to save the youths. The figure of the kneeling victim expecting the blow every moment to fall upon his neck and the majestic attitude of the saint in the act of seizing the sword, are finely rendered, but Giotto would hardly have approved of the complicated building decked with much superfluous decoration which is supposed to represent the city gate. The fresco below relates a vision of the Emperor Constantine who had ordered his three generals, unjustly accused of treason, to be put to death. St. Nicholas appears and commands him to release the prisoners, who are in a wooden cage by the bed. High up in the lunette of this wall is an interesting fresco referring to a humorous incident of one of the saint's miracles. It appears that a Jew, hearing that St. Nicholas gave special protection to property, placed a statue of him in his house; but it must be remembered that St. Nicholas was also the patron of thieves, and one day all the Jew's possessions disappeared. Enraged by the failure of his plan he administered a sound thrashing to the statue, which stands in a beautiful niche with spiral columns, behaving much in the same way as the childish sons of faith in Southern Italy who turn the Madonna's picture to the wall when their prayers have not been effectual. In this case St. Nicholas was so deeply offended that he appeared in a vision to the thieves, who kindly restored the goods of the irate Jew. There are dim remains of frescoes on this wall, but it is impossible to make out what they represent. Other wonderful miracles are related upon the opposite side, beginning high up in the lunette, where, with some difficulty, we distinguished St. Nicholas restoring a child to life who has been taken from his parents and killed by evil spirits. Below is a scene in a banqueting hall, where a king, seated at table, takes a goblet of wine from the hand of a slave boy. St. Nicholas, in full episcopals, performs one of his many ærial flights, lays his hand upon the boy's head and carries him back to his parents. In the scene beneath St. Nicholas is restoring to his people another youth, who, it seems, was nearly drowned while filling a goblet with water for the altar of St. Nicholas; or it may be the continuation of the preceding legend, and show the home-coming of the captive boy from the king's palace. It is one of the most charmingly rendered of the series; the impetuous action of the mother rising with outstretched arms to welcome her son, and the calm dignity of the father's embrace, are almost worthy of Giotto himself. A small dog bounds forward to add his welcome to the others, while St. Nicholas surveys the scene with great gravity, every line of his figure denoting dignity, power and repose. On one side of the arched entrance to the chapel is a fresco of St. Mary Magdalen, on the opposite side is St. John the Baptist, and in the vaulting of the arch, on the right, are St. Anthony of Padua with St. Francis; St. Albino with St. George; St. Agnes holding a lamb, perhaps the most graceful of the figures, with St. Cecilia crowned with roses. Opposite are St. Rufino and St. Nicholas holding a book; St. Sabino and St. Vittorino, both Assisan martyrs; and St. Claire with St. Catherine of Alexandria. But the quality of this artist will be only half realised if the single figures of the apostles on the walls below the scenes from the life of Nicholas are overlooked. Very grave and reposeful they lend an air of great solemnity to the chapel, and as Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle remark, they are "after those of Giotto in the Ciborium of Rome, the most admirable that were produced in the early times of the revival...." It is as difficult to explain why the Chapel of St. Nicholas possesses so much charm, as it is to understand why people seldom spend more than sufficient time to read the few lines in their guide-book about it and verify for themselves that the frescoes are there; but perhaps when some fifty frescoes by Giotto have to be realised in about an hour, which is the time usually devoted to them by the visitor to Assisi, it is not surprising that Giotto's follower, the closest and the best he ever had, should be neglected. The stained glass windows, remarkable rather for their harmony than for their depth of tone, belong also to the early part of the fourteenth century, and are decorated with the Orsini arms. On the left side of the central window is a charming design of St. Francis in a rose-coloured mantle, recommending to Christ the young Giovanni Gaetano Orsini, who is said to be buried in the chapel. His monument behind the altar, erected soon after his death in 1347, is, according to Vasari, the work of Agostino da Siena, a pupil of Giovanni Pisano. Very calm and youthful-looking the Cardinal lies at full length in long folded robes while two angels guard his slumbers. There is yet another treasure in St. Nicholas' Chapel; a lovely picture on panel of the Virgin and saints (rather difficult to see as it is against the light over the altar), by a Sienese artist who possesses some of Simone Martini's talent of depicting ethereal and serene Madonnas. _The Chapel of St. Maria Maddalena._--According to a legend given by Padre Angeli the chapel was built and consecrated by St. Bonaventure while General of the franciscan order towards the end of the thirteenth century. The three frescoes on the left wall certainly belong to Giotto's time, and if not actually painted by him they appear to be from his designs, and not merely copies of the Paduan frescoes which they resemble. Above the frescoes of the Raising of Lazarus and the Anointing of Christ's feet is the Communion of the Magdalen, rendered with such simplicity yet with so much religious feeling and solemnity that we realise it is indeed the last communion of the saint on earth. The attitude of the priest, the splendid drapery of the man in orange-coloured garments, and the way in which the figure of the saint being carried by angels to heaven completes the composition, bear unmistakably the impress of Giotto's style before the Paduan period (1206). The "Noli mi Tangere" upon the opposite wall may also have been designed by him, but the type of the faces are heavier than his, and the angels are no longer swift spirits of the heavens ending in flame and cloud. The painter, as if wishing to remind the faithful of the new life symbolised in the resurrection of Christ, has covered the rocks and ground with flowering rosebushes and exquisitely designed tufts of ferns and leaves. The story of the Prince and Princess of Marseilles is a favourite subject with the Giottesque school. The legend tells that when Mary Magdalen arrived at Marseilles with Lazarus and Martha, she met a prince and his wife who were praying to the gods for a son, and she persuaded them to pray instead to the God of the Christians. Their desire was granted, and they were converted, but evidently being of a cautious turn of mind, they resolved to sail at once for Jerusalem and find out if St. Peter's teaching agreed with that of the Magdalen. On the way a terrible storm arose, and during the tempest the princess gave birth to a son, and died. The sailors insisted that her body must be thrown overboard or the storm, they said, would not abate; at last the prince was forced to lay the body of his wife upon a rocky island in the midst of the ocean, and calling upon Mary Magdalen for help, he left the child wrapt in the cloak of its dead mother by her side and continued the journey to the Holy Land. His visit to St. Peter ended in his complete conversion, and upon his return to France he stopped at the rocky island where he found his wife and son alive and well, thanks to the prayers of St. Mary Magdalen. They returned to Marseilles, the vessel being guided by angels, and the whole town became Christian. Above the arch facing the altar is a very charming fresco of the Magdalen standing at the entrance of a cave, her hair falling like a mantle of cloth of gold about her, to receive the gift of a garment from a charitable hermit who had heard of her life of austerity and privation among the mountains of Provence. The single figures of St. Clare, St. Mary Magdalen and St. Rufino, as well as the saints in the vaulting opposite the altar, no longer follow Giotto's designs and are far inferior to the other frescoes. Teobaldo Pontano, Bishop of Assisi between 1314 and 1329, is supposed to be the kneeling figure at the feet of St. Rufino as donor of the chapel. It is so unlikely Giotto should have repeated his later Paduan designs in a feebler manner, as seen here, or that a pupil should have slavishly copied them, that it seems more probable the chapel dates from the time of St. Bonaventure, when its decoration may have been begun by Giotto and completed by some later Florentine follower called in by the bishop who desired to be buried here. The Pontano arms decorate the beautiful stained glass windows, which certainly date from the first half of the fourteenth century, and are the finest in the Lower Church with the exception of those in St. Martin's chapel. Each figure has a claim on our admiration, but especially lovely is the figure of the Magdalen whose hair falls to her feet in heavy waves of deepest gold. In the last division of the right window is the death of the saint, with the lions at her feet which are supposed to have dug her grave. _The Chapel of St. Antonio di Padova._--Built by the Assisan family of Lelli in the fourteenth century, it was once ornamented by Florentine frescoes of the same date which were destroyed when the roof fell in, and it has now nothing of interest save the windows. These contain some naive scenes from the life of St. Anthony; among them may be noticed his preaching to the fish which raise their heads above the water to listen. _Chapel of San Stefano._--This like the last, has only very decadent frescoes by Adone Doni and is solely interesting for its windows (second half of fourteenth century), where below the symbols of the Evangelists are single figures of saints, among them King Louis and the royal Bishop of Toulouse. Cardinal Gentile di Montefiore, founder of the chapel of S. Martino, was also the donor of this one and is represented in the right window with his crest, a tree growing out of a blue mound against an orange background. _The Chapel of St. Catherine, or Capella del Crocifisso._--This chapel was built by order of Cardinal Albornoz towards the end of the fourteenth century when on his passage through Umbria to reconquer the rebellious cities for the Roman Pontiff. He conceived at Assisi so great a love for the memory of St. Francis that he desired to be buried there; but though his body was brought to Assisi from Viterbo where he died in 1367, it was afterwards carried to his bishopric at Toledo "at small expense," writes an economical chronicler, "upon men's shoulders"; only a cardinal's hat, suspended from the roof of the chapel, now remains to remind us of the warlike Spanish prelate. The frescoes here have been assigned to that mythical person Buffalmaco, of whom Vasari relates such humorous tales. All we can say is that they belong to the second half of the fourteenth century and are not very pleasing scenes from the life and martyrdom of St. Catherine of Alexandria, with a fresco of Cardinal Albornoz receiving consecration from a pope under the auspices of St. Francis. The windows are the first things to shine out amidst the gloom as one enters the Lower Church. Especially attractive are the figures of St. Francis and St. Clare, their cloaks of the colour of a tea-rose, and of the other saints in green and russet-brown standing in a frame of twisted ribbons tied in bows above their heads. Unfortunately the glass has been repaired in some places by careless modern workers and we see such strange results as the large head of a bearded man upon the body of St. Catherine, high up in the left hand window.   [Illustration: THE OLD CEMETERY OF SAN FRANCESCO] _The Chapel of St. Anthony the Abbot._[80]--About 1367 two monuments were erected in this chapel over the sepulchres of two murdered princes--Messer Ferdinando Blasco, nephew of the Cardinal Albornoz, and his son Garzia. Some say they met their death at Spoleto where the father was vice-governor, others that they were killed at Assisi close to the convent of S. Appolinare by the citizens before they submitted to the kindly rule of the Cardinal. The chapel had been built by a liberal Assisan gentleman who also left money for its decoration; but if there were paintings (Vasari mentions some by Pace di Fænza) nothing now remains but a rather feeble picture by a scholar of Pinturicchio. The white stone monuments, the white-washed walls and the total absence of colour gives an uncared-for look to this out-of-the way corner of the church. A much brighter spot is the old cemetery opening out of this chapel, which was built in the fourteenth century with the intention of adorning it with frescoes in imitation of the Campo Santo at Pisa. The double cloister seen against a background of cypresses and firs, above which rises the northern side of the Basilica, form a pretty group of buildings, and can be better enjoyed now than in former days, when the bones of Assisan nobles and franciscan friars were piled in the open galleries. The Basilica of San Francesco became the burial place, not only of some of the saint's immediate followers, but also of many distinguished personages. The large stone tomb at the end of the church is always pointed out as that of "Ecuba," Queen of Cyprus, who is said to have come to Assisi in 1229 to give thanks for having been cured of an illness by the intercession of St. Francis, when she gave the porphyry vase full of ultramarine which is still to be seen, though now empty of its precious contents. She is said to have died in 1240, and to have been buried in San Francesco. But this "Ecuba" is a mysterious person not to be found in the history of her country, which has led some writers to say that it is Iolanthe, the second wife of Frederick II, who lies here. It is one of those tombs common in the time of Giovanni Pisani, but bearing only a faint resemblance to his masterpiece in the Church of San Domenico in Perugia. "On one side," says Vasari, in surprise at the novelty of the style, "the Queen, seated upon a chair, places her right leg over the left in a singular and modern manner, which position for a lady is ungraceful, and cannot be regarded as a suitable action for a royal monument." The tomb to the right was erected soon after 1479 in memory of Niccolo Specchi, an Assisan physician of renown attached to the persons of Eugenius IV, and Niccolo V. _Tomb of St. Francis._--Although it had always been supposed that St. Francis lay beneath the high altar, no one knew precisely the spot where Elias had hidden him. In the last centuries many attempts were made to find the tomb by driving galleries in every direction into the bed of rock on which the Basilica stands;[81] but all failed, until more energetic measures were taken in 1818. And after fifty nights of hard work, conducted with the greatest secrecy (it would seem as though the spirit of Elias still presided over the workers), below the high altar, encased in blocks of travertine taken from the Roman wall near the temple of Minerva, and fitted together neatly as those of an Etruscan wall, was found the sepulchral urn of St. Francis. It was evidently the same in which he had been laid in the Church of San Giorgio, untouched till that day. Round the skeleton were found various objects, placed, perhaps, by the Assisans, who in this seem to have followed the custom of their earliest ancestors, as offerings to the dead. There were several silver coins, amongst them some of Lucca of 1181 and 1208, and a Roman ring of the second century, with the figure of Pallas holding a Victory in her right hand engraved on a red cornelian. Five Umbrian bishops, four cardinals, numberless priests and archæologists visited the spot to verify the truth of the discovery, and finally published the tidings far and wide, which brought greater crowds than ever to Assisi, and among them no less a personage than the Emperor Francis I, of Austria. Donations poured in for building a chapel beneath the Lower Church round the saint's tomb, and in six months the work was completed by Giuseppe Brizzi of Assisi. The citizens, in their zeal, decorated it with marble altars and statues, until the tradition treasured by the people of a hidden chapel below the Basilica and rivalling it in richness was almost realised, and they flocked down the dark staircases with lighted torches to witness the accomplishment of the legends weaved by their forefathers (see p. 136). It is a most impressive sight to attend mass here with the peasants in early morning ere they go forth to their work in the fields. Silently they kneel with bowed heads near the tomb, touching it now and again through the grating with their rosaries; the acolytes move slowly about the altar and the voices of the priests are hushed, for here at least all feel the solemnity of a religious rite. The candles burn dimly with a smoky flame, the sanctuary lamps cast a flickering red light upon the marble pavement and the walls cut out of the living rock, and with the darkness which seems to press around is the damp smell, reminding us that we are indeed in the very bowels of the Assisan mountain.