ABSTRACT
In Florence and Siena as well as in Verona, Padua and Modena people can observe, a growing indifference to the Antique: classical art, as people may say in terms admittedly outmoded and inadequate, was too "naturalistic" to suit the Tuscans and too "idealistic" to suit the North Italians. Altars were embellished with painted retables instead of with statuary or goldsmith's work, and panel painting, as good as non-existent in the Gothic North, even invaded carpentry to produce such specifically Italian phenomena as cassoni, spallieri and deschi da parto. The profusion of Hercules scenes in the archivolt, finally, can be accounted for by the fact that the Italian Trecento had come to interpret Hercules as a representative not only of the virtue Fortitudo in particular but also of virtus generalis or virtus generaliter sumpta. The two great innovators mentioned are, Giotto di Bondone and Duccio di Buoninsegna, and to refer to their activities as complementary is justifiable on several grounds.
