d the design and sent it to them, and from it the
tomb was made, as will be said in the proper place. Now Pietro
Saccone was a great admirer of Giotto's worth, and when, not long
after, he took the Borgo a S. Sepolero, he brought from that place to
Arezzo a picture by the artist's hand, of small figures, which was
afterwards broken into fragments; but Baccio Gondi, a Florentine of
gentle birth, a lover of the noble arts and of every kind of virtue,
made a diligent search for the pieces of this picture when he was
commissioner at Arezzo, and succeeded in finding some. He brought
them to Florence, where he holds them in great veneration, as well as
some other things in his possession, also by Giotto, who produced so
much that an enumeration of all his works would excite incredulity.
It is not many years since that I happened to be at the hermitage of
Camaldoli, where I have done a number of things for the fathers, and
in a cell to which I was taken by the Very Rev. Don Antonio da Pisa,
then general of the congregation of Camaldoli, I saw a very beautiful
crucifix, on a gold ground, by Giotto, with his signature. I am
informed by the Rev. Don Silvano Razza, a Camaldolian monk, that this
crucifix is now in the cell of the principal, where it is treasured
for its author's sake as a most precious thing, together with a very
beautiful little picture by the hand of Raphael of Urbino.

For the Umiliati brethren of Ognissanti at Florence Giotto painted a
chapel and four pictures, one of them representing Our Lady
surrounded by a number of angels, with the child at her neck, on a
large crucifix of wood, the design of which was subsequently copied
by Puccio Capanna, and reproduced in every part of Italy, for he
closely followed Giotto's style. When this work of the Lives was
printed for the first time, the screen of that church contained a
picture painted in tempera by Giotto, representing the death of Our
Lady, surrounded by the apostles, while Christ receives her soul into
His arms. The work has been much praised by artists, and especially
by Michelagnolo Buonarotti who declared, as is related elsewhere,
that it was not possible to represent this scene in a more realistic
manner. This picture, being as I say held in great esteem, has been
carried away since the publication of the first edition of this work,
by one who may possibly have acted from love of art and reverence for
the work, which may have seemed then to be too little