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The Painters of Florence from the Thirteenth to the Sixteenth Century
The Painters of Florence from the Thirteenth to the Sixteenth Century Author:Julia Mary Cartwright Ady 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: however, described by Vasari, is still in existence: the altar-piece of St. Francis receiving the Stigmata on the rocky heights of La Vernia, together with the t... more »hree subjects of the predella—Pope Innocent's Dream of Francis supporting the falling pillars of the Church, the Confirmation of the Rule, and Francis preaching to the swallows. This interesting picture was originally painted for a church in Pisa, and now hangs in the Louvre. It bears the inscription, Opus Jocti Fiorentini, a signature which confirms Boccaccio's statement that Giotto always refused to bear the name of Magister. It is worthy of notice that in legal documents regarding the purchase of lands at Ves- pignano, which are still in existence, the master always employs the signature of Giottus pictor, while the Baroncelli altar-piece and other spurious works bear the forged inscription—Opus Magistri Jocti. In 1330, Giotto was invited to Naples by King Robert, whose son Charles, Duke of Calabria, held the post of Captain of the people of Florence during two years, and who had employed Giotto to paint his portrait. This monarch, the friend and patron of Boccaccio and Petrarch, received Giotto with the highest honour, and issued a decree, in the following January, granting this chosen and faithful servant all the privileges enjoyed by members of the royal household. Ghiberti tells us that Giotto painted the hall of King Robert's palace, and Petrarch alludes in one of his epistles to the frescoes with which he adorned the royal Chapel of the Castello dell' Uovo. " Do not fail," he writes, " to visit the royal Chapel where my contemporary, Giotto, the greatest painter of his age, has left such splendid monuments of his1335] GIOTTO AT NAPLES 43 pencil and genius." But all these works have been destroyed, and anothe...« less