That
over the altar has the picture of St. Francis himself. The three
others, of his Commanding Angels. In front of him, over the entrance
arch, Poverty. On his right hand, Obedience. On his left, Chastity.
Poverty, in a red patched dress, with grey wings, and a square nimbus
of glory above her head, is flying from a black hound, whose head is
seen at the corner of the medallion.
Chastity, veiled, is imprisoned in a tower, while angels watch her.
Obedience bears a yoke on her shoulders, and lays her hand on a book.
Now, this same quatrefoil, of St. Francis and his three Commanding
Angels, was also painted, but much more elaborately, by Giotto, on the
cross vault of the lower church of Assisi, and it is a question of
interest which of the two roofs was painted first.
Your Murray's Guide tells you the frescos in this chapel were painted
between 1296 and 1304. But as they represent, among other personages,
St. Louis of Toulouse, who was not canonized till 1317, that statement
is not altogether tenable. Also, as the first stone of the church was
only laid in 1294, when Giotto was a youth of eighteen, it is little
likely that either it would have been ready to be painted, or he ready
with his scheme of practical divinity, two years later.
Farther, Arnolfo, the builder of the main body of the church, died in
1310. And as St. Louis of Toulouse was not a saint till seven years
afterwards, and the frescos therefore beside the window not painted in
Arnolfo's day, it becomes another question whether Arnolfo left the
chapels or the church at all, in their present form.
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