Note 73 — Front matter (continued 3)

There are only the most meagre scraps of information to rely upon as to the dates of Giotto's works at San Francesco, and it is needless here to enter into the endless discussion. One thing is obvious; the Assisan frescoes must have been executed before those at Padua which have always been assigned to 1306. In these pages we have sometimes followed the view held by Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, sometimes that of Herr Thode, who appears to have studied the question with open eyes, but our final authority is M. Bernhard Berenson, who in a visit paid lately to Assisi was kind enough to point out many things which we should otherwise have passed by, and in the sequence of the frescoes by Giotto at San Francesco we have entirely followed his opinion.