The works of the great painters bear the impress of the Church. If the
spirit of liberty be present at all, it is veiled and hooded by monastic
garments. But it should never be forgotten, that, in this age, the Church
embodied an element of liberty. The keys of Saint Peter were brandished
against the universal sceptre of the Suabians; cultivated intellect was
matched, and often successfully, against brutal violence. The Pope was the
rival of Caesar.

The first great painting in the Academy--to return from this digression--is
the famous Madonna of Cimabue. This picture is astonishing. Although
considered by many critics to manifest lingering traces of the Byzantine
bandages, it seems to us, on the contrary, to be wonderfully free from
stiffness and conventionality. The genius of Cimabue extricates itself at a
bound from the trammels of preceding systems, and flies vigorously towards
nature.

The Madonna is colossal. She wears a hood, and holds her child in her
arms. There is a strong human, yet spiritualized expression upon the face.
The drapery is gracefully arranged, not folded like mummy cloths; and the
color is strong and liberally laid on, without any attempt, however, at
transparency of shadow. There is little indication of the technical glories
of succeeding centuries. Perhaps the best part of the picture is in the
lower margin. Here are four heads of saints, painted with a breadth and
energy absolutely startling, when one recollects by whom and when they were
executed. Dominic Ghirlandaio, two hundred years later, could hardly have
put more masculine expression into a quartet of heads.

Giotto's Madonna is the pendant to that of Cimabue; but although painted
twenty-five years later, it shows less progress in art than might be
expected. Giotto's triumphs are to be found in the frescos of the