[68] It would, however, be unsafe to found any conclusion on the naturalism found here, as it is certain that painters of many later periods worked in this lower church.
[69] According to Crowe and Cavalcaselle, the original drawing for this fresco is in the possession of H.R.H. the Duc d'Aumale. It is a pen drawing on vellum.
[71] It is in no spirit of carping criticism that I must here express my inability to discover clearly when Crowe and Cavalcaselle do intend to make Giotto visit Assisi. I have found so much difficulty in finding any definite statements throughout their work that I have almost ceased to expect them. I _believe_ they mean that the Assisi frescoes were previously executed to those of Padua.
"The characteristics of Power and Beauty occur more or less in different buildings, some in one and some in another; but all together, and all in their highest possible relative degrees, they exist, as far as I know, only in one building in the world, the Campanile of Giotto."--JOHN RUSKIN, _The Seven Lamps_.
The later work of Giotto at Florence falls into two distinct divisions, the one consisting of his frescoes and his great panel picture of the _Coronation of the Virgin_, the other of his sculpture and architecture, both of which last have as their sole remaining example, the Campanile, in the Piazza del Duomo, better known as "Giotto's tower." The limits of my space compel me to speak very briefly upon each of these divisions, which I regret the less because they are by far the best known and most frequently written about of Giotto's works; and when Mr. Ruskin has put forth his whole strength in description, an inferior writer may be well pardoned for unwillingness to make his inferiority manifest. With this brief word of apology then, I speak first of the frescoes in the Santa Croce.
Giotto painted four chapels here, but the only remaining frescoes are those in the chapels of the Peruzzi and the Bardi, the former containing scenes from the lives of St. John the Evangelist and St. John the Baptist, the latter representations of the life and death of St. Francis. Both these chapels have suffered a good deal from restoration, especially that of the Bardi, which has been so coarsely repainted as to have entirely lost all beauty of colour, and which I shall not therefore dwell upon in detail.