On which point--now that I have shown you where Giotto's St. Louis is
--I will ask you to think awhile, until you are interested; and then I
will try to satisfy your curiosity. There fore, please leave the little
chapel for the moment, and walk down the nave, till you come to two
sepulchral slabs near the west end, and then look about you and see
what sort of a church Santa Croce is.
Without looking about you at all, you may find, in your Murray, the
useful information that it is a church which "consists of a very wide
nave and lateral aisles, separated by seven fine pointed arches." And
as you will be--under ordinary conditions of tourist hurry--glad to
learn so much, _without_ looking, it is little likely to occur to
you that this nave and two rich aisles required also, for your complete
present comfort, walls at both ends, and a roof on the top. It is just
possible, indeed, you may have been struck, on entering, by the curious
disposition of painted glass at the east end;--more remotely possible
that, in returning down the nave, you may this moment have noticed the
extremely small circular window at the west end; but the chances are a
thousand to one that, after being pulled from tomb to tomb round the
aisles and chapels, you should take so extraordinary an additional
amount of pains as to look up at the roof,--unless you do it now,
quietly. It will have had its effect upon you, even if you don't,
without your knowledge.
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