GIOTTO'S GOSPEL OF LABOR. 



93 



metic, astronomy, geometry, and music, the qua- 

 drivium. From the thirteenth down to the six- 

 teenth century, symbolical figures of these seven 

 liberal studies are among the most frequent repre- 

 sentations of art. Sometimes each study is typi- 

 fied by the personage of a particular master fa- 

 mous for having excelled in it, as grammar by 

 Priscian or Donatus, geometry by Euclid. This 

 is the mode of representation used in the main 

 by our sculptor of the Campanile ; but not in 

 any strict traditional way. Rather, though in a 

 figure like this searcher of the stars he has no 

 doubt had in his mind some ancient astronomer 

 of renown, Thales or Meton or Ptolemy or Hip- 

 parchus, yet it is not the person but the idea, the 

 soul and essence of star-searching and star-wor- 

 shiping, which he has been really bent on think- 

 ing out and exhibiting. Nor could that idea be 

 possibly shadowed forth in loftier or more speak- 

 ing lineaments. Sometimes we find the seven 

 studies treated in a different way from this, and 

 each personified in the figure of a woman, whose 

 guise and attributes tell us what she stands for. 

 Of this treatment much the most beautiful exam- 

 ple is in a famous set of Florentine engravings of 

 the fifteenth century, the playing-cards of Man- 

 tegna, as they used in error to be called. As- 

 tronomy is there represented, not by an old man 

 seated, but by the standing figure of a lovely and 

 inspired woman, who gazes into a globe set with 

 stars. 



Sometimes the two kinds of type are com- 

 bined ; the chief instance of this is in a fresco by 

 one of the followers of Giotto, where the sages of 

 the several sciences sit in the lowest tier of the 

 composition, and women-figures representing the 

 sciences themselves are enthroned above them. 1 

 But, however represented, we are accustomed to 

 find these liberal arts in a group by themselves ; 

 and, in a scheme like the present, we should ex- 

 pect them to follow and form the climax of the 

 series of the manual and practical arts. Where- 

 as we have already had one type of music in the 

 person of Jubal, presently we shall find two 

 others of the same art ; and now we have as- 

 tronomy coming immediately after the drunken- 

 ness of Noah. The reason for this irregular or- 

 der most likely is that the series, though it may 

 have been systematically conceived at the outset, 

 was put up by those who carried on Giotto's work 

 after his death, not systematically, but at hap- 



1 This fresco in the Spanish Chapel of the Church 

 of Santa Maria Novella has been minutely described 

 by Mr. Raskin in the fifth of his " Morniags in Flor- 

 ence." 



hazard, according as each subject chanced to 

 come finished from the studio. 



The next sculpture shows us the operations of 

 building. Course after course is being added to 

 a great square tower, and from within the tower 

 the figure of the master-builder half emerges at 

 the top, his assistants on either hand laying stone 

 upon stone at his bidding. This is perhaps the 

 rudest of the whole series ; at least it is the only 

 instance here in which, as in primitive Italian 

 painting, the figures are drawn of disproportion- 

 ate dimensions, the master-builder being much 

 bigger than his companions. For the rest, the 

 scaffold and ladders are of perfectly practical 

 construction, and the essential facts of the art in 

 question, as in all the subjects of the series, are 

 expressed with absolute and simple pertinence. 

 Here, again, the artist had probably in his mind 

 some builder out of the Bible — how Enoch builded 

 him a city, or else the presumptuous builders of 

 the Tower of Babel. This last is what the sub- 

 ject looks most like; and we shall presently see 

 another case in which the artist has certainly 

 made his choice for warning and not for example, 

 and has represented the enterprise of man pushed 

 to overweening pitch. Next to building comes 

 pottery; and this is treated as the business of 

 womankind. A superintendent, or mistress of 

 the works, sits on a raised seat at one end, test- 

 ing, apparently, each vessel as it is brought her, 

 and ranging on a shelf those that are truly 

 wrought ; before her stand other women carrying 

 cakes of clay strung ready to be fashioned. In 

 this group, unfortunately, the marble is in parts 

 much bruised and blackened, and especially in' 

 the faces of the women, so that we can hardly 

 realize its original aspect. 



At the point we have now reached, the artist 

 seems to have had the idea of alternating with 

 the industries of woman, in furnishing and plenish- 

 ing the house within, the industries of man in 

 subduing the world without to his service. Next 

 after the first potters comes the first adventurer 

 on horseback ; and assuredly, out of the Elgin 

 marbles, there does not exist a figure in which 

 the freedom and eagerness of riding are more 

 nobly expressed. The gallop of the horse is a 

 little stiff and misunderstood, the two hind legs 

 being set to the ground and the two fore legs 

 lifted together, as usual in early art ; yet even in 

 the horse there is more life than we are accus- 

 tomed to find in the design of horses until we 

 come to quite modern times. And nothing can 

 be truer than the grip of the youthful horseman 

 with his thighs as he rides bare-backed, nothing 



