These artists, among other works, began to paint the Chapel of the Gondi, situate next the principal chapel, in Santa Maria Novella, the roof and walls of which are now almost entirely destroyed by time,--and Cimabue, often escaping from the school, and having already made a commencement in the art be was so fond of, would stand watching those masters at their work, the day through. Judging from these circumstances, his father, as well as the artists themselves, concluded him to be well endowed for painting, and thought that much might be hoped from his future efforts, if he were devoted to that art. Giovanni was accordingly, to his no small satisfaction, placed with those masters. From this time he laboured incessantly, and was so far aided by his natural powers that he soon greatly surpassed his teachers both in design and colouring. For these masters, caring little for the progress of art, had executed their works as we now see them, not in the excellent manner of the ancient Greeks, but in the rude modern style of their own day. Wherefore, though Cimabue imitated his Greek instructors, he very much improved the art, relieving it greatly from their uncouth manner, and doing honour to his country by the name he acquired, and by the works he performed. Of this we have evidence in Florence from the pictures which be painted there ; as, for example, the front of the altar of Santa Cecilia, and a picture of the Virgin, in Santa Croce, which was, and is still, attached to one of the pilasters on the right of the choir."
The present eye praises the present object:
Then marvel not, thou great a~el complete Jean,
That all the Grceks begin to worship Ajax
Since things in motion sooner catch the eye
Than what not stirs. The cry went once on dice;
nd still it might, and yet it may again,
If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive,
And case thy reputation in thy tent.
Cimabue died in 1300. His epitaph is
"Credidit ut Cimabos picturae castra tenere,
Sic tenuit vivens, nunc tenet astra poli."
Vasari, Lives of the Painters, 1.93:
"The gratitude which the masters in painting owe to Nature, --who is ever the truest model of him who, possessing the power to select the brightest parts from her best and loveliest features, employs himself unweariedly in the reproduction of these beauties, --this gratitude, I say, is due, in my judgment, to the Florentine painter Giotto, seeing that he alone,--although born amidst incapable artists, and at a time when all good methods in art had long been entombed beneath the ruins of war, --yet, by the favour of Heaven, he, I say, alone succeeded in resuscitating Art, and restoring her to a path that may be called the true one. And it was in truth a great marvel, that from so rude and enapt an age Giotto should have had strength to elicit so much, that the art of design, of which the men of those days had little, if any knowledge, was by his means effectually recalled into life. The birth of this great man took place in the hamlet of Vespignano, fourteen miles from the city of Florence, in the year 1276. His father's name was Bondone, a simple husbandman, who reared the child, to whom he had given the name of Giotto, with such decency as his condition permitted. The boy was early remarked for extreme vivacity in all his childish proceedings, and for extraordinary promptitude of intelligence ; so that he became endeared, not only to his father, but to all who knew him in the village and around it. When he was about ten years old, Bondone gave him a few sheep to watch, and with these he wandered about the vicinity,--now here and now there. But, induced by Nature herself to the arts of design, he was perpetually drawing on the stones, the earth, or the sand, some natural object that came before him, or some fantasy that presented itself to his thoughts. It chanced one day that the affairs of Cimabue took him from Florence to Vespignano, when he perceived the young Giotto, who, while his sheep fed around him, was occupied in drawing one of them from the life, with a stone slightly pointed, upon a smooth, clean piece of rock,--and that without any teaching whatever but such as Nature herself had imparted. Halting in astonishment, Cimabue inquired of the boy if he would accompany him to his home, and the child replied, he would go willingly, if his father were content to permit it. Cimabue therefore requesting the consent of Bondone, the latter granted it readily, and suffered the artist to conduct his son to Florence, where, in a short time, instructed by Cimabue and aided by Nature, the boy not only equalled his master in his own manner, but became so good an imitator of Nature that he totally banished the rude Greek manner, restoring art to the better path adhered to in modern times, and introducing the custom of accurately drawing living persons from nature, which had not been used for more than two hundred years. Or, if some had attempted it, as said above , it was not by any means with the success of Giotto. Among the portraits by this artist, and which still remain, is one of his contemporary and intimate friend, Dante Alighieri, who was no less famous as a poet than Giotto as a painter, and whom Messer Giovanni Boccaccio has lauded so highly in the introduction to his story of Messer Forese da Rabatta, and of Giotto the painter himself. This portrait is in the chapel of the palace of the Podestà in Florence ; and in the same chapel are the portraits of Ser Brunetto Latini, master of Dante, and of Messer Corso Donati, an illustrious citizen of that day."
Pope Benedict the Ninth, hearing of Giotto's fame, sent one of his courtiers to Tuscany, to propose to him certain paintings for the Church of St. Peter. "The messenger," continues Vasari, "when on his way to visit Giotto, and to inquire what other good masters there were in Florence, spoke first with many artists in Siena,--then, having received designs from them, he proceeded to Florence, and repaired one morning to the workshop where Giotto was occupied with his labours. He declared the purpose of the Pope, and the manner in which that Pontiff desired to avail himself of his assistance ; and, finally, requested to have a drawing, that he might send it to his Holiness. Giotto, who was very courteous, took a sheet of paper and a pencil dipped in a red colour, then, resting his elbow on his side, to form a sort of compass, with one turn of the hand he drew a circle, so perfect and exact that it was a marvel to behold. This done, he turned smiling to the courtier, saying, 'Here is your drawing.' 'Am I to have nothing more than this?' inquired the latter, conceiving himself to be jested with. 'That is enough and to spare,' returned Giotto ; 'send it with the rest, and you will see if it will be recognised.' The messenger, unable to obtain anything more, went away very ill satisfied, and fearing that he had been fooled. Nevertbeless, having despatched the other drawings to the Pope, with the names of those who had done them, he sent that of Giotto also, relating the mode in which he had made his circle, without moving his arm and without compasses ; from which the Pope, and such of tbe courtiers as were well versed in the subject, perceived how far Giotto surpassed all the other painters of his time. This incident, becoming known, gave rise to the proverb, still used in relation to people of dull wits, -- Tu sei più tondo che 1'O di Giotto ; the significance of which consists in the double meaning of the word 'tondo,' which is used in the Tuscan for slowness of intellect and heaviness of comprehension, as well as for an exact circle. The proverb has besides an interest from the circumstance which gave it birth....
It is said that Giotto, when he was still a boy, and studying with Cimabue, once painted a fly on the nose of a figure on which Cimabue himself was employed, and this so naturally, that, when the master returned to continue his work, he believed it to be real, and lifted his hand more than once to drive it awav before he should go on with the painting."
Boccaccio, Decameron, VI. 5, tells this tale of Giotto :--"As it often happens that fortune hides under the meanest trades in life the greatest virtues, which has been proved by Pampinea ; so are the greatest geniuses found frequently lodged by Nature in the most deformed and misshapen bodies, which was verified in two of our own citizens, as I am now going to relate. For the one, who was called Forese da Rabatta, being a little deformed mortal, with a flat Dutch face, worse than any of the family of the Baronci, yet was he esteemed by most men a repository of the civil law. And the other, whose name was Giotto, had such a prodigious fancy, that there was nothing in Nature, the parent of all things, but he could imitate it with his pencil so well, and draw it so like, as to deceive our very senses, imagining that to be the very thing itself which was only his painting : therefore, having brought that art again to light, which had lain buried for many ages under the errors of such as aimed more to captivate the eyes of the ignorant, than to please the understandings of those who were really judges, he may be deservedly called one of the lights and glories of our city, and the rather as being master of his art, notwithstanding his modesty would never suffer himself to be so esteemed ; which honour, though rejected by him, displayed itself in him with the greater lustre, as it was so eagerly usurped by others less knowing than himself, and by many also who had all their knowledge from him. But though his excellence in his profession was so wouderful, yet as to his person and aspect he had no way the advantage of Signor Forese. To come then to my story. These two worthies had each his country-seat at Mugello, and Forese being gone thither in the vacation time, and riding upon an unsightly steed, chanced to meet there with Giotto ; who was no better equipped than himself, when they returned together to Florence. Travelling slowly along, as they were able to go no faster, they were overtaken by a great shower of rain, and forced to take shelter in a poor man's house, who was well known to them both ; --and, as there was no appearance of the weather's clearing up, and each being desirous of getting home that night, they borrowed two old, rusty cloaks, and two rusty hats, and they proceeded on their journey. After they had gotten a good part of their way, thoroughly wet, and covered with dirt and mire, which their two shuffling steeds had thrown upon them, and which by no means improved their looks, it began to clear up at last, and they, who had hitherto said but little to each other, now turned to discourse together ; whilst Forese, riding along and listening to Giotto, who was excellent at telling a story, began at last to view him attentively from head to foot, and, seeing him in that wretched, dirty pickle, without having any regard to himself he fell a laughing, and said, 'Do you suppose, Giotto, if a stranger were to meet with you now, who had never seen you before, that he would imagine you to be the best painter in the world, as you really are ?' Giotto readily replied, 'Yes, sir, I believe he might think so, if, looking at you at the same time, he would ever conclude that you had learned your A, B, C.' At this Forese was sensible of his mistake, finding himself well paid in his own coin."
Another story of Giotto may be found in Sachetti, Nov. 75
"The father
Of me and of my betters, who had ever
Practised the sweet and gracious rhymes of love.
Halliwell, Dic. of Arch. and Prov. Words : "DINDERS, small coins of the Lower Empire, found at Wroxeter."
"O holy hope and high humility,
"Apt words have power to swage
The humility which saved him was his seating himself at a little table in the public square of Siena, called the Campo, and begging money of all passers to pay the ransom of a friend who had been taken prisoner by Charles of Anjou, as here narrated by Dante.
"He, therewith much abashed and affrayd,
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 11.108
The revolution of the fixed stars, according to the Ptolemaic theory, which was also Dante's, was thirty-six thousand years.
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 11.109
"Who goes so slowly," interprets the Ottimo.
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 11.112
At the battle of Monte Aperto. See Inf X. Note 86.
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 11.118
Henry Vaughan, Sacred Poems :
High as the heavens above ;
These are your walks, and you nave showed
them me
To kindle my cold love!"
And Milton, Sams. Agon., 185:--
The tumours of a troubled mind."
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 11.121
A haughty and ambitious nobleman of Siena, who led the Sienese troops at the battle of Monte Aperto. Afterwards, when the Sienese were routed by the Florentines at the battle of Colle in the Val d' Eisa, (Purg. XIII. Note 115,) he was taken prisoner "and his head was cut off," says Villani, VII. 31, "and carried through all the camp fixed upon a lance. And well was fulfilled the prophecy and revelation which the devil had made to him, by means of necromancy, but which he did not understand ; for the devil, being constrained to tell how he would succeed in that battle, mendaciously answered, and said : 'Thou shalt go forth and fight, thou shalt conquer not die in the battle, and thy head shall be highest in the camp.' And he, believing from these words that he should be victorious, and believing that he should be lord over all did not put a stop after 'not' (vincerai no, morrai, thou shalt conquer not, thou shalt die). And therefore it is great folly to put faith in the devil's advice. This Messer Provenzano was a great man in Siena after his victory at Monte Aperto, and led the whole city, and all the Ghibelline party of Tuscany made him their chief, and he was very presumptuous in his will."
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 11.138
Spenser, Faery Queen, VI. c. 7, st. 22
Began to tremble every limbe and vaine."
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 11.141
A prophecy of Dante's banishment and poverty and humiliation.