painter who can be declared free from the superstitious reverence of ancient forms, the trammels of Byzantine or middle-age art, and he surpassed his master Cimabue, as much as Cimabue surpassed those who preceded him. It was not the least of Cimabue's merits to have discovered and cultivated the ability of Giotto. The story of Giotto is more like a romance than history. He was a shepherd boy, and one day, while tending his father's sheep, and amusing himself by drawing one of the animals on the ground, he was surprised in the act by the great master Cimabue, who struck with astonishment at the boy's talent, asked him to go and live with him; and Giotto, having obtained the consent of his father, followed his new patron to Florence with delight.

Though the design of Giotto is extremely hard and Gothic, and he paid little attention to either perspective or chiaroscuro, there are no traces of the Byzantine style in his mature works, which constitute the first great epoch in modern painting; and Florence dates its preponderance in the history of the Tuscan school from the time of Giotto. Great as was the fame of Cimabue, says Dante, it was obscured by that of Giotto:

"Credette Cimabue nella Pintura

Tener lo campo; ed ora ha Giotto il Grido,

Si che la fama di colui s' oscura."-Purgatorio, xi. 32.

Giotto made an immense advance in composition and expression, and his forms have much nature. He painted history, portrait, and miniature, and worked in mosaic; he was also sculptor and architect the celebrated Campanile of Florence is his design, though it was not built until some years after his death, by Taddeo Gaddi. He enriched many of the cities of Italy with his works, of which the wall paintings of the church of San Francesco at Assisi, executed in what is called fresco-secco,' appear to have been the most extensive. But the greater part of his paintings have perished; those of the church del Carmine at Florence, so lately as 1771, by fire; they are however preserved in the prints of them by Thomas Patch, published at Florence, together with some of the works of Masaccio and Fra Bartolomeo, in 1770-1772, and one of the original fragments is now in the National Gallery. The works in the church

1 Veritable Fresco, that is painting on the newly plastered wall is, like Gothic architecture, a comparatively recent art in Europe, and it is pretty well decided that Giotto never painted in Buon-fresco, the earliest example of which is supposed to be the work of Pietro D'Orvieto executed in the Campo Santo at Pisa in the year 1390. The process of secco painting is described by Theophilus in the treatise mentioned above: the already dry wall is first saturated with water, the picture is then painted with colours mixed with lime. On Italian processes generally see Sir Charles Eastlake's "Materials for a History of Oil Painting," which is very complete on all older methods of painting.

of San Francesco at Assisi are engraved in Fea's "Descrizione della Basilica di San Francesco d'Assisi."

One of the results of the progress made by Giotto through his abandoning conventional forms for Nature herself, as a principle which appears to have guided him in everything that he painted, was the accomplishment of portraiture. Portrait had been attempted before, but Giotto, according to Vasari, was the first of the moderns who successfully attempted it. In 1840 a most interesting recovery was made of some portraits painted by Giotto in the chapel of the Palazzo del Podestà. He painted here the portraits of Dante, Brunetto Latini, Corso Donati, and others. Some years after they were executed, they were whitewashed over by the political enemies of Dante and his party during their triumph. The hope of recovering these interesting works had been long entertained, and after various unsuccessful attempts at different times, the labours of Mr. Aubrey Bezzi were finally crowned with success in July, 1840, when the plaster was removed, and the portraits were discovered in good preservation.'

Giotto was at Rome in the pontificate of Boniface VIII., and there, in the ancient Basilica, he executed in 1298, with the assistance of Pietro Cavallini, his well-known mosaic of the Disciples in the Storm, called the Navicella of Giotto; it is now in the vestibule of the present St. Peter's. It has been frequently moved, and has also undergone many restorations. In 1306 we find him engaged at Padua, where he painted in the Scrovegni chapel, in the church of the Madonna dell' Arena, a noble series of subjects from the life of the Virgin, and the Passion of Christ, with other representations, the greater part of which still exist. Giotto left also valuable works at Naples, Ravenna, Milan, Pisa, Lucca, Avignon, and at many other places. He went to Avignon between 1306 and 1314, when he took a present of a bronze crucifix to Pope Clement V. from Andrea Pisani, which led to that sculptor's commission from Clement for the bronze gates of the Baptistery of Florence. Giotto was again in Florence in 1316; in 1322 he visited Lucca; and in 1327 he was at Naples, where he executed some works for King Robert in a chapel in the Castel Nuovo there, which has been destroyed. Giotto returned to Florence, and died there in 1336. He was buried with great pomp in the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. The scholars and imitators of Giotto, known as the Giotteschi, were very numerous, and his works had doubtless an indirect influence in all parts of Italy. His principal followers were Stefano Fiorentino, Tommaso di Stefano, called Giottino, and Taddeo Gaddi, the son of Gaddo Gaddi. These painters worked in the same style as Hand-book of Painting," Italy, Editor's note, p. 50. 2 See the valuable publications of the Arundel Society.

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Giotto, sometimes inferior and sometimes superior to him in execution. Stefano Fiorentino obtained the nick-name of the ape of Nature Scimia della Natura," from the supposed close imitation

of his works. TADDEO GADDI, says Vasari, excelled Giotto in colouring, and in light and shade. He was born in Florence in the year 1300. Giotto was his godfather, and Taddeo lived with him twenty-four years. He enlarged somewhat upon the style of Giotto, and was the most distinguished of his numerous scholars; he gave more bulk and motion to his figures, but adhered to the general principles of the style, especially its formal symmetrical composition. His principal works were painted in the church of Santa Croce,' and in the chapel degli Spagnuoli in the church of Santa Maria Novella. The figures of the three saints seated in this chapel are magnificent in the character of the heads and in the style of the draperies; they represent San Dionysio Areopagita, San Pietro Lombardo, and San Severino Boezio: they are engraved in Lastri's "Etruria Pittrice." Taddeo was still living in 1366, as shown in a document discovered by Rumohr.' On the the 20th of August of that year, Taddeo undertook a commission connected with the building of the present Cathedral of Florence. He was a distinguished architect as well as painter; he constructed the celebrated Campanile or belfry of Florence from the design of Giotto, and Florence owed to him her two principal bridges-the Ponte Vecchio, and the Ponte della Trinità which was destroyed by the flood of 1557. He made a great fortune, and was the founder of the distinguished Florentine family of the Gaddi.

The National Gallery possesses three examples of the school of this painter; one, a fine altar-piece executed in tempera in 1387, representing the Baptism of Christ. It was formerly in the Abbey del Sasso di Camaldoli, in the Casentino, is in its original form and state, with cuspidi and predella, containing in all eleven pictures. And in spite of its unquestionable faults and conventionalities, there is much dignity of character in the figures, and something very charming and natural in the small pictures of the predella.

Contemporary with Giotto was BUONAMICO DI CRISTOFANO, called Buffalmacco; he was the scholar of Andrea Tafi, and is celebrated for his humour by Boccaccio and Saccheti, and for his ability by Ghiberti and Vasari. Of the works attributed to him there are still some remaining in the Campo Santo at Pisa, and at Arezzo. Buffalmacco, when he chose to exert himself, says Vasari, which, however, was not often, was equal to any of his contemporaries. He died in

1 In the Giugni chapel. They are engraved in Lasinio's "Affreschi Celebri," &c., and he is now supposed to have been the painter of the "Last Supper" in the Refectory, formerly attributed to Giotto; see "Ramboux's Tracings."

2 Arch. dell' op. del Duomo di Fir. 1363-96, folio 71. "Italienische Forschungen," ii. p. 82.