d in main sentiment and
significance of composition, despite the two centuries and more which
separate the Gaddi from Titian and Tintoret, despite the complete change
in artistic aims and methods separating still more completely the men of
the fourteenth century from the men of the sixteenth. The long flight of
steps stretching across the fresco in Santa Croce stretches also across
the canvas of the great Venetians; and the little girl climbs up them
alike, presenting her profile to the spectator; although at the top
of the steps there is in one case a Gothic portal, and in the other a
Palladian portico, and at the bottom of the steps in the fresco stand
Florentines who might personally have known Dante, and at the bottom
of the steps in the pictures the Venetian patrons of Aretino. Yet the
presentation of the little maiden to the High Priest is quite equally
conceivable in many other ways and from many other points of view. As
regards both dramatic conception and pictorial composition, the moment
might have been differently chosen; the child might still be with its
parents or already with the priest; and the flight of steps might have
been replaced by the court of the temple. Any man might have invented
his own representation of the occurrence. But the men of the sixteenth
century adhered scrupulously or indifferently to the inventions of the
men of the fourteenth.

This is merely one instance in a hundred. If we summon up in our mind
as many as we can of the various frescoes and pictures representing the
chief incidents of Scripture history, we shall find that, while there
are endless differences between them with respect to drawing, anatomy,
perspective, light and shade, colour and handling, there are but few and
slight variations as regards the conception of the situation and the
arrangement for the figures. In the Marriage of the Virgin the suitors
are dressed, sometimes in the loose robe and cap with lappets of the
days of Giotto, and sometimes in the tight hose and laced doublet of
the days of Raphael and of Luini; but they break their wands across
their knees with the same gesture and expression; and although the temple
is sometimes close at hand, and sometimes a little way off, the wedding
ceremony invariably takes place outside it, and not inside. The shepherds
in the Nativity are sometimes young and sometimes old, but they always
come in broad daylight, and the manger by which the Virgin is kneeling
is always