ces it involves. There are three
materials for it, we said;--stone, wood, and metal. Stone engraving is
the art of countries possessing marble and gems; wood engraving, of
countries overgrown with forest; metal engraving, of countries
possessing treasures of silver and gold. And the style of a stone
engraver is formed on pillars and pyramids; the style of a wood engraver
under the eaves of larch cottages; the style of a metal engraver in the
treasuries of kings. Do you suppose I could rightly explain to you the
value of a single touch on brass by Finiguerra, or on box by Bewick,
unless I had grasp of the great laws of climate and country; and could
trace the inherited sirocco or tramontana of thought to which the souls
and bodies of the men owed their existence?

62. You see that in this flag of 1300 there is a dark strong line in the
center, against which you read the name of Arnolfo.

In writing our Florentine Dunciad, or History of Fools, can we possibly
begin with a better day than All Fools' Day? On All Fools' Day--the
first, if you like better so to call it, of the month of _opening_,--in
the year 1300, is signed the document making Arnolfo a citizen of
Florence, and in 1310 he dies, chief master of the works of the
cathedral there. To this man, Crowe and Cavalcaselle give half a page,
out of three volumes of five hundred pages each.

But lower down in my flag, (not put there because of any inferiority,
but by order of chronology,) you will see a name sufficiently familiar
to you--that of Giotto; and to him, our historians of painting in Italy
give some hundred pages, under the impression, stated by them at page
243 of their volume, that "in his hands, art in the Peninsula became
entitled for the first time to the name of Italian."

63. Art became Italian! Yes, but _what_ art? Your authors give a
perspective--or what they call such,--of the upper church of Assisi, as
if that were merely an accidental occurrence of blind walls for Giotto
to paint on!

But how came the upper church of Assisi there? How came it to be
vaulted--to be aisled? How came Giotto to be asked to paint upon it?

The art that built it, good or bad, must have been an Italian one,
before Giotto. He could not have painted on the air. Let us see how his
panels were made for him.

64. This Captain--the center of our first group--Arnolfo, has always
hitherto been called 'Arnolfo di Lapo;'--Arnolfo the son of Lapo.

Modern investigators come