her bier is on its way to the cemetery outside the pretty city.  “Am I really to live again?” she so plainly says to the inexorable miracle-worker.  The dancing of Herodias’ daughter, which offered Giotto less scope, is original too—­original not because it came so early, but because Giotto’s mind was original and innovating and creative.  The musician is charming.  The last scene of all is a delightful blend of religious fervour and reality:  the miraculous ascent from the tomb, through an elegant Florentine loggia, to everlasting glory, in a blaze of gold, and Christ and an apostle leaning out of heaven with outstretched hands to pull the saint in, as into a boat.  Such a Christ as that could not but be believed in.

In the next chapel, the Bardi, we find Giotto at work on a life of S. Francis, and here again Ruskin is essential.  It was a task which, since this church was the great effort of the Florentine Franciscans, would put an artist upon his mettle, and Giotto set the chosen incidents before the observers with the discretion and skill of the great biographer that he was, and not only that, but the great Assisi decorator that he was.  No choice could have been better at any time in the history of art.  Giotto chose the following scenes, one or two of which coincide with those on Benedetto da Maiano’s pulpit, which came of course many years later:  the “Confirmation of the Rules of the Franciscans,” “S.  Francis before the Sultan and the Magi,” “S.  Francis Sick and Appearing to the Bishop of Assisi,” “S.  Francis Fleeing from His Father’s House and His Reception by the Bishop of Assisi,” and the “Death of S. Francis”.  Giotto’s Assisi frescoes, which preceded these, anticipate them; but in some cases these are considered to be better, although in others not so good.  It is generally agreed that the death scene is the best.  Note the characteristic touch by which Giotto makes one of the monks at the head of the bed look up at the precise moment when the saint dies, seeing him being received into heaven.  According to Vasari, one of the two monks (on the extreme left, as I suppose) is Giotto’s portrait of the architect of the church, Amolfo.  The altar picture, consisting of many more scenes in the life of S. Francis, is often attributed to Cimabue, Giotto’s master, but probably is by another hand.  In one of these scenes the saint is found preaching to what must be the most attentive birds on record.  The figures on the ceiling represent Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience, which all Franciscans are pledged to observe.  The glass is coeval with the building, which has been described as the most perfect Gothic chapel in existence.

The founder of this chapel was Ridolfo de’ Bardi, whose family early in the fourteenth century bade fair to become as powerful as the Medici, and by the same means, their business being banking and money-lending, in association with the founders of the adjoining chapel, the Peruzzi.  Ridolfo’s father died in 1310, and his son, who had become a Franciscan, in 1327; and the chapel was built, and Giotto probably painted the frescoes, soon after the father’s death.  Both the Bardi and Peruzzi were brought low by our King Edward III, who borrowed from them money with which to fight the French, at Crecy and Poitiers, and omitted to repay it.