Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects

The endless flood of misfortunes which overwhelmed unhappy Italy not only ruined everything worthy of the name of a building, but completely extinguished the race of artists, a far more serious matter. Then, as it pleased God, there was born in the year 1240 in the city of Florence, Giovanni, surnamed Cimabue, of the noble family of the Cimabui, to shed the first light on the art of painting. As he grew up he appeared to his father and others to be a boy of quick intelligence, so that he was accordingly sent to receive instruction in letters to a relation, a master at S. Maria Novella, who then taught grammar to the novices of that convent. Instead of paying attention to his lessons, Cimabue spent the whole day in drawing men, horses, houses, and various other fancies on his books and odd sheets, like one who felt himself compelled to do so by nature. Fortune proved favourable to this natural inclination, for some Greek artists were summoned to Florence by the government of the city for no other purpose than the revival of painting in their midst, since that art was not so much debased as altogether lost. Among the other works which they began in the city, they undertook the chapel of the Gondi, the vaulting and walls of which are to-day all but destroyed by the ravages of time. It is situated in S. Maria Novella, next the principal chapel. In this way Cimabue made a beginning in the art which attracted him, for he often played the truant and spent the whole day in watching the masters work. Thus it came about that his father and the artists considered him so fitted to be a painter that, if he devoted himself to the profession, he might look for honourable success in it, and to his great satisfaction his father procured him employment with the painters. Then, by dint of continual practice and with the assistance of his natural talent, he far surpassed the manner of his teachers both in design and in colour. For they had never cared to make any progress, and had executed their works, not in the good manner of ancient Greece, but in the rude modern style of that time. But although Cimabue imitated the Greeks he introduced many improvements in the art, and in a great measure emancipated himself from their awkward manner, bringing honour to his country by his name and by the works which he produced. The pictures which he executed in Florence bear testimony to this, such as the antipendium to the altar of St Cecilia, and a Madonna in S. Croce, which was then and still is fastened to a pillar on the right hand side of the choir. Subsequently he painted on a panel a St Francis, on a gold ground. He drew this from nature, to the best of his powers, although it was a novelty to do so in those days, and about it he represented the whole of the saint’s life in twenty small pictures full of little figures, on a gold ground. He afterwards undertook a large picture for the monks of Vallombrosa in their abbey of S, Trinita at Florence. This was a Madonna with the child in her arms, surrounded by many adoring angels, on a gold ground. To justify the high opinion in which he was already held, he worked at it with great industry, showing improved powers of invention and exhibiting our lady in a pleasing attitude. The painting when finished was placed by the monks over the high altar of the church, whence it was afterwards removed to make way for the picture of Alesso Baldovinetti, which is there to-day. It was afterwards placed in a small chapel of the south aisle in that church. Cimabue next worked in fresco at the hospital of the Porcellana, at the corner of the via Nuova which leads to the Borgo Ognissanti. On one side of the facade, in the middle of which is the principal door, he represented an Annunciation, and on the other side, Jesus Christ with Cleophas and Luke, life-size figures. In this work he abandoned the old manner, making the draperies, garments, and other things somewhat more life-like, natural and soft than the style of the Greeks, full as that was of lines and profiles as well in mosaics as in painting. The painters of those times had taught one another that rough, awkward and common-place style for a great number of years, not by means of study but as a matter of custom, without ever dreaming of improving their designs by beauty of colouring or by any invention of worth. After this was finished Cimabue again received a commission from the same superior for whom he had done the work at S. Croce. He now made him a large crucifix of wood, which may still be seen in the church. The work caused the superior, who was well pleased with it, to take him to their convent of S. Francesco at Pisa, to paint a picture of St Francis there. When completed it was considered most remarkable by the people there, since they recognised a certain quality of excellence in the turn of the heads and in the fall of the drapery which was not to be found in the Byzantine style in any work executed up to that time not only in Pisa but throughout Italy.