When Cimabue returned to Florence he worked in the cloister of Santo Spirito, the whole side of which opposite the church is covered with paintings in the Byzantine style by other artists. He depicted on three small arches scenes from the life of Christ, which were drawn very competently. At this time as well he sent some of the work he did in Florence to Empoli; and these paintings are still there in the parish church, where they are held in great reverence. Then he did a panel picture of Our Lady for the church of Santa Maria Novella, where it hangs up high between the Rucellai Chapel and the chapel of the Bardi of Vernio; the figure was larger than any that had been painted up to that time, and some of the angels show that although he worked in the Byzantine style he was gradually adopting something of the draughtsmanship and method of modern times. As a result this painting so astonished his contemporaries, who had never seen anything better, that it was carried to the sound of trumpets and amid scenes of great rejoicing in solemn procession from Cimabue’s house; and Cimabue was generously praised and rewarded for it. It is said, and we can read it in some records left by the old painters, that while Cimabue was at work on this painting in some gardens near St Peter’s Gate, the old King Charles of Anjou passed through Florence, and that among the many courtesies that the Florentines extended to him they took him to see Cimabue’s painting. As this had not yet been seen by anyone, when it was shown to the king all the men and women of Florence flocked there as well, jostling each other and rejoicing. The people who lived in the neighbourhood were so delighted that they called the place Borgo Allegri, the Joyful District, and when over the years it came to be included within the walls of the city, it still kept the same name, and still does.
In San Francesco at Pisa, where as I said above Cima hue did several other paintings, there is a small panel by his hand, in tempera, in the cloister at a corner near the church door. It shows Christ hanging on the cross, with several angels who are weeping and holding in their hands a few words written above His head; they are directing these words towards the ears of Our Lady, who stands in tears on the right, and of St John, who is there grief-stricken on the left. The words meant for the Virgin are: Mulier, eccefilius turn, and those for St John read: Ecce mater tua. And to one side there is another angel holding the message: Ex illa hora accepit earn discipulus in suam. From this we can see that Cimabue was starting to shed new light and to open the way to invention by expressing the meaning of his painting with the help of words; this was certainly a very novel and fanciful departure.
After Cimabue had won a considerable reputation and no small profit from these works he was taken into partnership by Arnolfo Lapi, a highly skilled architect of that time, in the construction of Santa Maria del Fiore at Florence. But at length in the year 1300, at the age of sixty, Cimabue departed from this life, having all but succeeded in bringing the art of painting back to life. He left many disciples, including the great painter, Giotto; and Giotto lived after Cimabue in his master’s house in the Via del Cocomero. Cimabue was buried in Santa Maria del Fiore, and his epitaph, by one of the Nini family, was as follows:
Credidit ul Cimabos picturae castra tenere,
Sic tenuit vivens; nunc tenet ostra poli.1
I must also add that if his disciple Giotto had not diminished his glory, Cimabue’s fame would have been even greater, as was indicated by Dante in his Divine Comedy, where in the eleventh Canto of the Purgatorio in an allusion to Cimabue’s epitaph he says:
Credette Cimabue nella pintura
Tener lo campo, ed ora ha Giotto il grido;
Sí che la fama di colui oscura.2
A commentator on Dante wrote an interpretation of these lines during the lifetime of Giotto, some ten or twelve years after the death of Dante himself, about the year of Our Lord 1334. Talking about Cimabue he used these exact words:
Cimabue was a Florentine painter who lived at the time of the poet; he had outstanding ability, but he was so arrogant and disdainful that if anyone remarked any fault or defect in his work or if he had noticed any himself (for, as often happens, an artist can make a mistake because of some defect in his materials or some inadequacy in the instruments he is using) he immediately rejected it, no matter how precious it might be. Giotto was and is the greatest of painters and also comes from the city of Florence; and his work at Rome, Naples, Avignon, Florence, and Padua bears this out.…
This commentary is now in the possession of the Very Reverend Vincenzo Borghini, prior of the Innocenti, a man renowned for his nobility, goodness, and learning, who is also a lover and connoisseur of all the fine arts and who well deserved the post of official representative at our Academy of Design, for which he was wisely chosen by the Lord Duke Cosimo.
But to return to Cimabue: although Giotto’s fame obscured his, this was only in fact in the way that a great light dims the splendour of a lesser. Cimabue was, as it were, the first cause of the renewal of the art of painting. Giotto, although he was his pupil, inspired by a worthy ambition and helped by providence and his natural gifts, aspired even higher. And it was Giotto who opened the door of truth to those who have subsequently brought the art of painting to the greatness and perfection it can claim in our own century. In our time there have been so many marvels and so many miraculous, indeed, well-nigh impossible artistic triumphs to see every day that we have come to the point where no matter what is done, even if it seems superhuman, no one is astonished. And those artists who exert themselves in a praiseworthy way are lucky if they avoid being blamed and even very often brought to shame instead of earning praise and admiration. The portrait of Cimabue by Simone Martini can be seen in the chapter-house of Santa Maria Novella. It is done in profile, in Simone’s painting of the Faith; the figure shows a thin face, with a small, pointed beard, reddish in colour, and wearing a hood after the fashion of those days wound very gracefully round the head and throat. The figure beside him is Simone himself, the artist, who drew himself with the help of two mirrors facing each other, so that he could show his own head in profile. And the heavily armed soldier standing between them is, it is said, Count Guido Novello, who was then ruler of Poppi. In conclusion, I must record that I have some little works from the hand of Cimabue, resembling miniatures, at the beginning of a book in which I have collected drawings by artists from his time to our own; although today these may seem rather crude, all the same they show how much the art of design profited from his labours.1
LIFE OF GIOTTO
Florentine painter, sculptor, and architect, 1266/7–1337
IN my opinion painters owe to Giotto, the Florentine painter, exactly the same debt they owe to nature, which constantly serves them as a model and whose finest and most beautiful aspects they are always striving to imitate and reproduce. For after the many years during which the methods and outlines of good painting had been buried under the ruins caused by war it was Giotto alone who, by God’s favour, rescued and restored the art, even though he was born among incompetent artists. It was, indeed, a great miracle that in so gross and incompetent an age Giotto could be inspired to such good purpose that by his work he completely restored the art of design, of which his contemporaries knew little or nothing. And yet this great man, who started life in the year 1276 in the village of Vespignano, fourteen miles out in the country from the city of Florence, was the son of a poor peasant farmer called Bondone, who gave him the name Giotto and then brought him up just like any other boy of his class.
By the time he reached the age of ten Giotto showed in all his boyish ways such unusually quick intelligence and liveliness that he delighted not only his father but all who knew him, whether they lived in the village or beyond. Bondone used to let him look after some sheep; and while the animals grazed here and there about the farm, the boy, drawn instinctively to the art of design, was always sketching what he saw in nature, or imagined in his own mind, on stones or on the ground or the sand. One day Cimabue was on his way from Florence to Vespignano, where he had some business to attend to, when he came across Gi
otto who, while the sheep were grazing near by, was drawing one of them by scratching with a slightly pointed stone on a smooth clean piece of rock. And this was before he had received any instruction except for what he saw in nature itself. Cimabue stopped in astonishment to watch him, and then he asked the boy whether he would like to come and live with him. Giotto answered that if his father agreed he would love to do so. So Cimabue approached Bondone, who was delighted to grant his request and allowed him to take the boy to Florence. After he had gone to live there, helped by his natural talent and instructed by Cimabue, in a very short space of time Giotto not only captured his master’s own style but also began to draw so ably from life that he made a decisive break with the crude traditional Byzantine style and brought to life the great art of painting as we know it today, introducing the technique of drawing accurately from life, which had been neglected for more than two hundred years. Although, as I said before, one or two people had tried to do this, no one succeeded as completely and as immediately as Giotto. Among the things that he did at this time was, as we can see today, a painting in the chapel of the palace of the Podestà at Florence, showing his dear friend Dante Alighieri, who was no less famous as a poet than he was as a painter. (We find Giotto being highly praised by Giovanni Boccaccio in the introduction to his story about Forese da Rabatta and Giotto himself.1) In the same chapel are portraits by Giotto of Dante’s master, Brunetto Latini, and of Corso Donati, an eminent Florentine citizen of those days.
Giotto’s first paintings were done for the chapel of the high altar of the abbey of Florence where he executed many works which were highly praised. Among them, especially admired was a picture of the Annunciation in which he convincingly depicted the fear and trembling of the Virgin Mary before the Archangel Gabriel; Our Lady is so fearful that it appears as if she is longing to run away.
The panel painting over the high altar of the same chapel is also by Giotto, but this work has been kept there more from respect for anything by so great an artist than for any other reason. Four of the chapels in Santa Croce were also painted by Giotto, three of them between the sacristy and the main chapel and one on the opposite side of the church. In the first of the three, that of Ridolfo di Bardi where the bell-ropes are, is the life of St Francis. In this painting Giotto painted with great effect the tears of a number of friars lamenting the death of the saint. In the second, the Peruzzi Chapel, are two scenes from the life of St John the Baptist, to whom the chapel is dedicated: in these, Giotto has depicted in very lively fashion the dancing and leaping of Herodias and the prompt service given by some servants at table. In the same place are two marvellous scenes from the life of St John the Evangelist, showing him restoring Drusiana to life and then being carried up into heaven. In the third chapel, belonging to the Giugni family, and dedicated to the Apostles, Giotto has painted scenes showing the martyrdom of many of those holy men. In the fourth chapel on the other side of the church towards the north, belonging to the Tosinghi and the Spinelli families and dedicated to the Assumption of Our Lady, Giotto painted the Birth of Our Lady, her Betrothal, the Annunciation, the Adoration of the Magi, and the Presentation of the Christ-child to Simeon in the Temple. This is a beautiful work, for apart from the skill with which he has depicted the emotions of the old man as he takes Christ from His mother, the attitude of the child Himself, who is frightened of Simeon and all timidly stretches out his arms and turns towards his mother, could not be more moving or beautiful. Then in the painting showing Our Lady’s death Giotto depicted the Apostles and a number of angels with torches in their hands, very beautifully executed.
In the Baroncelli Chapel of the same church there is a painting in tempera by Giotto, in which he has very carefully depicted the Coronation of Our Lady with a great number of small figures and a choir of angels and saints, finished with great care. On this work are Giotto’s name and the date, in gold letters; and any artist who considers when it was that Giotto, without any enlightenment from the good style of our own time, gave the first impulse to the correct way of drawing and colouring, is bound to hold him in the greatest respect.
In the same church of Santa Croce there is also, above the marble tomb of Carlo Marsuppini of Arezzo, a Crucifixion, with the Virgin, St John, and the Magdalen at the foot of the cross. On the other side of the church, directly opposite this, above the tomb of Leonardo of Arezzo near the high altar, is an Annunciation; and this has been retouched by later painters, with results that show little judgement on the part of whoever was responsible. In the refectory there is a Tree of the Cross, with scenes from the life of St Louis and a Last Supper, all by the hand of Giotto; and on the presses of the sacristy there are a number of scenes, with small figures, from the lives of Christ and of St Francis.1
The chapel of St John the Baptist in the Carmelite Church was also decorated by Giotto with four paintings tracing the life history of St Francis: and in the Guelph Palace at Florence there is by his hand a history of the Christian Faith, perfectly executed in fresco, containing the portrait of Pope Clement IV who established the Guelph magistracy and conferred on it his own coat-of-arms which it has held uninterruptedly ever since.2 When all this work was finished, Giotto left Florence for Assisi in order to finish the works which had been started there by Cimabue. On his way he decorated the chapel of St Francis, which is above the baptistry in the parish church of Arezzo, as well as painting from life portraits of St Francis and St Dominic, on a round column which is near a very fine, antique Corinthian capital, and also, in a little chapel of the Duomo outside Arezzo, executing the beautifully composed picture of the Stoning of St Stephen.
After this Giotto went on to Assisi in Umbria, having been summoned there by Fra Giovanni di Murro della Marca, who at that time was minister general of the Franciscans; and at Assisi in the Upper Church of San Francesco, on the two sides of the church under the gallery that crosses the windows, he painted thirty-two histories from the life and works of St Francis. There are sixteen frescoes on each wall, and they were so perfect that they brought Giotto tremendous fame. There is, indeed, wonderful variety not only in the gestures and attitudes of all the figures shown in the cycle but also in the composition of every single scene; moreover, it is marvellous to see the way Giotto painted the various costumes worn at that time and his observation and imitation of nature. One of the most beautiful scenes is of a man showing signs of great thirst kneeling down to drink eagerly at a fountain; the incident is conveyed so exactly and movingly that one might be looking at a real person. There are many other things in the cycle which demand our attention. For the sake of brevity I shall not dwell on them; it is enough to record that this work won tremendous fame for its author because of the excellence of the figures, and because of the liveliness, the ease, order, and proportion of Giotto’s painting, qualities which were given him by nature but which he greatly improved by study and expressed clearly in all he did. As well as being naturally talented, Giotto was extremely studious; he was always going for new ideas to nature itself, and so he could rightly claim to have had nature, rather than any human master, as his teacher.
After the fresco cycle was finished, Giotto did some more work in the same place, but in the Lower Church, painting the upper part of the walls beside the high altar and all four angles of the vault, above where St Francis is buried, with scenes of great beauty, imagination, and inventiveness. In the first he depicted St Francis glorified in heaven, surrounded by the virtues necessary if one wants to be in a state of perfect grace before God. On one side there is Obedience, putting a yoke on the neck of a friar who kneels in front of her; the reins of the yoke are being drawn up towards heaven, and Obedience, a finger at her lips, is cautioning silence and turns her eyes towards the figure of Jesus Christ, whose side is flowing with blood. Standing among the various virtues are the figures of Prudence and Humility, intended to show that where there is true obedience there is always humility and always the prudence to make every action wise. Chastity is depicted on the s
econd angle of the vault, standing secure in a strong castle and unmoved by the offers being made to her of kingdoms and crowns and palms of glory. At her feet is the figure of Purity, washing the naked and attended by Fortitude who is bringing people to be washed and purified. To the side of Chastity is the figure of Penitence, chasing away Cupid with the cord of discipline and putting Impurity to flight. On the third angle is Poverty, who goes in her bare feet trampling on thorns; there is a dog behind her, barking, and near at hand one naked boy throwing stones and another pressing thorns into her legs with a stick. We see this same figure of Poverty being wed by St Francis, with her hand held by Jesus Christ, in the mystical presence of Hope and Charity. In the fourth and last of the angles of the vault is St Francis, again in glory, clothed in the white tunic of a deacon; he stands triumphant in heaven in the middle of a great choir of angels, who bear a standard showing a cross and seven stars, and over above is the Holy Ghost. On each of these paintings are written some words in Latin, which explain their significance.
As well as the paintings on the vault, there are on the walls of the transepts some beautiful pictures which truly deserve to be held in great esteem, not only because they are perfect works of art but also because they were executed with such tremendous care that they are still as fresh today as when they were done. Among them is an excellent portrait of Giotto himself. And above the door of the sacristy there is another painting by Giotto, again in fresco, showing St Francis receiving the stigmata and displaying such devout emotion that it seems to me the finest Giotto did in that group, although all the paintings are really beautiful and praiseworthy.
Lives of the Artists Page 6