is confirmed by the technical, and artistic progress which they reveal. They exhibit indeed the master in a higher sphere of development than at Assisi and Rome. 1 1 It is worthy of remark that many years later, but still before the death of Giotto, a decree was issued at Florence, prohibiting any rector or official of the people or “commune” from painting, or causing, or allowing, to be painted in any house or place, inhabited, or used by such officers in the exercise ot their duty, any picture; and further ordering all such pic tures, or statues, as manifestly existed, in contempt of this decree, to be destroyed, with the excep tion of such as should represent the Redeemer and the Virgin, or such as should represent a vic tory, or the capture of a city to the advantage of the Florentines. Giotto’s pictures in the chapel of the Podesta were saved, no doubt, under one of these exceptions; but it would be curious, were a list to be found of pictures or statues destroyed under this decree which is dated 1329. See the original decree, in Gaye. Carteggio In- edito. Vol. I. p. 473.