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Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons (1804)
Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons - 1804 Author:William Seward Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: He was an Architect; and, in conjunction with Arnalfi Lupa, fuperintended the building of the celebrated fabric of St. Maria di Fiori, in Florence; in which chur... more »ch he is buried, with this quibbling Epitaph upon his tomb : Credidit ut Cimabos Pittura caftra tenere, Sic tenuit vivens, nunc tenet ajlrapolt. GIOTTO. As Cimabuc was going one day from Florence to Vefpignano, he faw in the fields a fhepherd's boy drawing upon a flat ftone with a pointed one the figure of a fheep: this was Giotto. The good-humoured and difcerning Artift afked him if he fhould like to go home with him, and leara to paint. The boy replied, " Very willingly, if " his father would give him leave." . Permiflion being obtained from the father, Cimabue took Giotto with him to Florence, where he foon ex celled his Mafter, and became one of the founders of the Florentine School. It is faid, that Pope Benedict XI. defirous to have fpecimens of the works of the Florentine Painters, fent to have a fketch from each of them.; and that Giotto fent him a circle made with thepoint of his pencil, and all at once, upon a piece of paper : hence the proverb, " Tufeipiu tondo cbe I'D di Giotto." No Painter ever received greater praife than Giotto: Dante, Petrarch, and Politian, all combined to celebrate his talents in the higheft ftrain of panegyric. He was moft afluredly the beft Painter they had feen; -fo that any one who reads 'what they have faid of him, would have fuppofed him equal to Raphael or Michael Angdo: nor, indeed, could more have been faid of thofe great Painters ; the common topics of panegyric are foon exhaufted. Petrarch leaves to a friend his picture of the Virgin Mary, painted by Giotto, ' cujus pulcbritudinem ignorantes non intelligunt, " magiftri autem artisjlupent." Politian fays, P...« less