Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

feeing them work; when his father, obferving the very strongly-minded difpofition he had to painting, permitted him, however it might have affected his prejudices, to exercife that noble art, which he afterwards practifed with an honour and reputation that ever attend those who are the precurfors of eminence in others,

Cimabue's pictures would now be deemed barbarous; his manner was hard and dry; and that there might be no poffibility of mistake in the judgment of the fpectator refpecting the fubject, infcriptions were added, with fentences coming out of the mouths of the perfons reprefented in them,

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 church he is buried, with this quibbling Epitaph upon his tomb;

Credidit ut CIMABOS Picture caftra tenere,
Sic tenuit vivens, nunc tenet afira poli,

GIOTTO.

As Cimabue was going one day from Florence to Vespignano, he faw in the fields a fhepherd's boy drawing upon a flat stone with a pointed one the figure of a fheep: this was Giotto. The good-humoured and discerning Artist asked him if he should like to go home with him, and learn to paint. The boy replied, " Very willingly, if "his father would give him leave." Permiffion being obtained from the father, Cimabue took Giotto with him to Florence, where he foon excelled his Master, 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 sketch from each of them; and that Giotto fent him a circle made with the point of his pencil, and all at once, upon a piece paper: hence the proverb,

of

"Tu fei più tondo che l'O di Giotto."

No painter ever received greater praise than Giotto: Dante, Petrarch, and Politian, all combined to celebrate his talents in the highest strain of panegyric. He was most affuredly the best Painter

Painter they had seen; so that any one who reads what they have faid of him, would have fuppofed him equal to Raphael or Michael Angelo: nor, indeed, could more have been faid of those 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 pulchritudinem ignorantes non intelligunt, magiftri autem artis stupent."

Politian fays,

Pictorem genuit celebrem Florentia JOCTUM,
Quo melior toto nullus in orbe fuit.
Quem fi laudati vidissent tempora Apellis,
Gloria pictoris non minor hujus erit.

A wond'rous Painter Florence brought to view,
Giotto; the World a better never knew;

Who, had he lived in fam'd Apelles' days,

With that great Painter would have shar'd the praife:

yet pofterity fee nothing in what remains of Giotto that warrants this panegyric.

POPE URBAN THE SIXTH

[1378-1389.]

EMANUEL CHRYSOLORAS.

"I PLACE," fays Paulus Jovius, "the repre "fentation of Chryfoloras the first among those " of the learned Grecians, because, though no

[ocr errors]

thing remains of his writings befides fome "rules of grammar, he was the first who "brought Greek learning into Europe, which he "effected with an affiduity and a liberality be"yond all praife." He was fent by John, the Emperor of Conftantinople, to implore the affiftance of all the Princes of Europe against the Turks. Having fucceeded in his embaffy, he excited first among the Venetians and the Florentines, and afterwards in Rome and in Milan, a violent paffion for Greek learning, John Galeas, Duke of Milan, by great rewards, contributed very much to the diffufion of the knowledge of that language, fo that in the school of Chryfoloras many eminent fcholars were produced, as Aretin, Francifco Barbaro, Guarini, and Poggi..

Chry

Chryfoloras was prefent at the celebrated Council of Conftance, where he died. Poggi decorated his tomb with thefe elegant lines;

Hic eft Emanuel fitus,
Sermonis decus Attici,

Qui dum quærere opem patriæ

Afflicta ftudet huc iît.

Res bellè cecidit tuis

Votis, Italia. Hic tibi fplendidum
Linguæ reftituit decus

Attica, ante recondita.
Res bellè cecidit tuis
Votis, Emanuel, folo
Confecutus in Italo
Eternum decus es tibi,
Quale Gracia non dedit,
Bello perdita Gracia.

COSMO DE MEDICIS.

[1430-1464.]

ON the tomb of this illuftrious Citizen of Florence, the founder of the family of the Medici, is infcribed this short but honourable inscription:

COSMUS MEDICIS

Hic fitus eft,
Decreto Publico,
Pater Patria.

❝ Cofmo

« ForrigeFortsett »