evidently being considered an important personage, is at work in the
passage. Apart from all reference to the legends, there is something
peculiarly beautiful in the simplicity of Giotto's conception, and in
the way in which he has shown the angel entering at the window,
without the least endeavour to impress our imagination by darkness, or
light, or clouds, or any other accessory; as though believing that
angels might appear any where, and any day, and to all men, as a
matter of course, if we would ask them, or were fit company for them.

* * * * *

IV.

THE SACRIFICE OF JOACHIM.

The account of this sacrifice is only given clearly in the Harleian
MS.; but even this differs from Giotto's series in the order of the
visions, as the subject of the _next_ plate is recorded first in this
MS., under the curious heading, "_Disse Sancto Theofilo_ como l'angelo
de Dio aperse a Joachim lo qual li anuntia la nativita della vergene
Maria;" while the record of this vision and sacrifice is headed, "Como
l'angelo de Dio aparse _anchora_ a Joachim." It then proceeds thus:
"At this very moment of the day" (when the angel appeared to Anna),
"there appeared a most beautiful youth (_unno belitissimo zovene_)
among the mountains there, where Joachim was, and said to Joachim,
'Wherefore dost thou not return to thy wife?' And Joachim answered,
'These twenty years God has given me no fruit of her, wherefore I was
chased from the temple with infinite shame.... And, as long as I live,
I will give alms of my flocks to widows and pilgrims.'... And these
words being finished, the youth answered, 'I am the angel of God who