ent on the completeness of what is presented to
them as to be paralysed by an error in perspective, or stifled by the
absence of atmosphere.

Nor is the healthy simplicity of the period less marked in the
selection than in the treatment of subjects. It has in these days
become necessary for the painter who desires popularity to accumulate
on his canvas whatever is startling in aspect or emotion, and to
drain, even to exhaustion, the vulgar sources of the pathetic. Modern
sentiment, at once feverish and feeble, remains unawakened except by
the violences of gaiety or gloom; and the eye refuses to pause, except
when it is tempted by the luxury of beauty, or fascinated by the
excitement of terror. It ought not, therefore, to be without a
respectful admiration that we find the masters of the fourteenth
century dwelling on moments of the most subdued and tender feeling,
and leaving the spectator to trace the under-currents of thought which
link them with future events of mightier interest, and fill with a
prophetic power and mystery scenes in themselves so simple as the
meeting of a master with his herdsmen among the hills, or the return
of a betrothed virgin to her house.

[Illustration]

It is, however, to be remembered that this quietness in character of
subject was much more possible to an early painter, owing to the
connection in which his works were to be seen. A modern picture,
isolated and portable, must rest all its claims to attention on its
own actual subject: but the pictures of the early masters were nearly
always parts of a consecutive and stable series, in which many were
subdued, like the connecting passages of a prolonged poem, in order to
enhance the value or meaning of others. The arrangement of the
subjects in the Arena Chapel is in this respect peculiarly skilful;
and to that arrangement we must now direct our attention.

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE ARENA CHAPEL, PADUA, LOOKING EASTWARD.]

It was before noticed that the chapel was built between 1300 and 1306.
The architecture of Italy in the beginning of the fourteenth century
is always pure, and often severe; but this chapel is remarkable, even
among the severest forms, for the absence of decoration. Its plan,
seen in the marginal figure on p. 26, is a pure oblong, with a narrow
advanced tribune, terminating in a trilateral apse. Selvatico quotes
from the German writer Stieglitz some curious observations on the
apparent derivation of its proport