wn hand; you find, further, that this architect and
sculptor was the greatest painter of his time, and the friend of the
greatest poet; and you have represented by him a painter in his
shop,--bottega,--as symbolic of the entire art of painting.

59. In which representation, please note how carefully Giotto shows you
the tabernacles or niches, in which the paintings are to be placed. Not
independent of their frames, these panels of his, you see!

Have you ever considered, in the early history of painting, how
important also is the history of the frame maker? It is a matter, I
assure you, needing your very best consideration. For the frame was made
before the picture. The painted window is much, but the aperture it
fills was thought of before it. The fresco by Giotto is much, but the
vault it adorns was planned first. Who thought of these;--who built?

Questions taking us far back before the birth of the shepherd boy of
Fesole--questions not to be answered by history of painting only, still
less of painting in _Italy_ only.

60. And in pointing out to you this fact, I may once for all prove to
you the essential unity of the arts, and show you how impossible it is
to understand one without reference to another. Which I wish you to
observe all the more closely, that you may use, without danger of being
misled, the data, of unequaled value, which have been collected by Crowe
and Cavalcaselle, in the book which they have called a History of
Painting in Italy, but which is in fact only a dictionary of details
relating to that history. Such a title is an absurdity on the face of
it. For, first, you can no more write the history of painting in Italy
than you can write the history of the south wind in Italy. The sirocco
does indeed produce certain effects at Genoa, and others at Rome; but
what would be the value of a treatise upon the winds, which, for the
honor of any country, assumed that every city of it had a native
sirocco?

But, further,--imagine what success would attend the meteorologist who
should set himself to give an account of the south wind, but take no
notice of the north!

And, finally, suppose an attempt to give you an account of either wind,
but none of the seas, or mountain passes, by which they were nourished,
or directed.

61. For instance, I am in this course of lectures to give you an account
of a single and minor branch of graphic art,--engraving. But observe how
many references to local circumstan