Anthony, who enjoys
at Padua the same reputation as Saint Januarius at Naples. He is the
"genius loci," the Saint venerated above all others. He used to perform
not less than thirty miracles each day, if Casanova[17] is to be
believed. Such a performance fairly earned for him his surname of
Thaumaturge, but this prodigious zeal has fallen off greatly.
Nevertheless, the reputation of the saint has not suffered, and so many
masses are paid for at his altar that the number of the priests of the
cathedral and of days in the year are not sufficient. To liquidate the
accounts, the Pope has granted permission, at the end of the year, for
masses to be said, each, one of which is of the value of a thousand; in
this fashion Saint Anthony is saved from being bankrupt to his faithful
devotees.

On the place which adjoins the cathedral, a beautiful equestrian statue
by Donatello, in bronze, rises to view, the first which had been cast
since the days of antiquity, representing a leader of banditti:
Gattamelata, a brigand who surely did not deserve that honor. But the
artist has given him a superb bearing and a spirited figure with his
baton of a Roman emperor, and it is entirely sufficient....

One thing which must not be neglected in passing through Padua is a
visit to the old Church of the Arena, situated at the rear of a garden
of luxuriant vegetation, where it would certainly not be conjectured to
be located unless one were advised of the fact. It is entirely painted
in its interior by Giotto. Not a single column, not a single rib, nor
architectural division interrupts that vast tapestry of frescoes. The
general aspect is soft, azure, starry, like a beautiful, calm sky;
ultramarine dominates; thirty compartments of large dimensions,
indicated by simple lines, contain the life of the Virgin and of her
Divine Son in all their details; they might be called illustrations in
miniature of a gigantic missal. The personages, by naive anachronisms
very precious for history, are clothed in the mode of the times in which
Giotto painted.

Below these compositions of the purest religious feeling, a painted
plinth shows the seven deadly sins symbolized in an ingenious manner,
and other allegorical figures of a very good style; a Paradise and a
Hell, subjects which greatly imprest the minds of the artists of that
epoch, complete this marvelous whole. There are in these paintings weird
and touching details; children issue from their little co