quarters, with another four tales told on those. And each history in
the sides has its correspondent history in the roof. Generally, in good
Italian decoration, the roof represents constant, or essential facts;
the walls, consecutive histories arising out of them, or leading up to
them. Thus here, the roof represents in front of you, in its main
quarter, the Resurrection--the cardinal fact of Christianity; opposite
(above, behind you), the Ascension; on your left hand, the descent of
the Holy Spirit; on your right, Christ's perpetual presence with His
Church, symbolized by His appearance on the Sea of Galilee to the
disciples in the storm.

The correspondent walls represent: under the first quarter, (the
Resurrection), the story of the Crucifixion; under the second quarter,
(the Ascension), the preaching after that departure, that Christ will
return--symbolized here in the Dominican church by the consecration of
St. Dominic; under the third quarter, (the descent of the Holy Spirit),
the disciplining power of human virtue and wisdom; under the fourth
quarter, (St. Peter's Ship), the authority and government of the State
and Church.

The order of these subjects, chosen by the Dominican monks themselves,
was sufficiently comprehensive to leave boundless room for the
invention of the painter. The execution of it was first intrusted to
Taddeo Gaddi, the best architectural master of Giotto's school, who
painted the four quarters of the roof entirely, but with no great
brilliancy of invention, and was beginning to go down one of the sides,
when, luckily, a man of stronger brain, his friend, came from Siena.
Taddeo thankfully yielded the room to him; he joined his own work to
that of his less able friend in an exquisitely pretty and complimentary
way; throwing his own greater strength into it, not competitively, but