246 EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. Chap. VIII. very successful, others chose colour, or relief, others again sunk themselves in a search for accessories or detail. None took up art in all its branches where Giotto left it. His pupils had neither their master’s genius, nor his talent; and art therefore declined in their hands, till in the fif teenth century it verged towards naturalism. Then Ghir landaio supervened, who gathered together and concentrated in himself most of the various branches of its progress. It was reserved for Raphael at last to perfect it in all its parts, and bring it to a high general level similar in comparison to that upon which it rested at the death of Giotto. Italian art may therefore be said to remain con fined within three great names, those of Giotto, Ghirlandaio and Raphael: yet it must be understood that the great merit of many intermediate artists contributed, each in its measure, to this general result. Giotto executed for the lower church of Assisi other frescos than those of the central ceiling. The scenes from the life of the Saviour and of S. Francis in the Southern transept exhibit not merely the character of a work of the rise of the fourteenth century, but the development and perfection of Giotto’s manner. These frescos have been assigned by Rumohr to Giovanni da Milano, 1 in accordance with a very arbitrary reading of Vasari. It is quite true that the biographer says of Giovanni, that in Assisi “he painted the tribune of the high altar, where he executed the crucifixion, the Virgin and Santa Chiara, and on the faces and sides, scenes of the life of the Vir gin; 2 but the frescos of the South transept are evidently not those meant by Vasari, firstly, because the tribune of the high altar is not the transept, and secondly, because the subjects in the transept are different trom those given by the biographer. These cover the East and West wall in three courses beginning at the top of the latter with 1 Rumohr (ub. sup. Vol. II. p. 87.) who thus contradicts the positive statement of Ghiberti (comm. 2. in Vas. Vol. I. p. XVIII.) “Dipinse nella chiesa di Asciesi quasi tutta la parte di sotto.” * Vas. Vol. II. p. 120.