ain, from
where the solitary woman, beautiful beyond belief, conversed with
Machiavelli on the morning of the first of May in 1527.[125] We who can
call to mind the scenes that picture has looked down upon--we who have
studied the rise and decadence of painting throughout Italy from this
beginning even to the last work of the latest Bolognese--may do well to
visit it with reverence, and to ponder on the race of mighty masters whose
lineage here takes its origin.

Cimabue did not free his style from what are called Byzantine or
Romanesque mannerisms. To unpractised eyes his saints and angels, with
their stiff draperies and angular attitudes, though they exhibit
stateliness and majesty, belong to the same tribe as the grim mosaics and
gaunt frescoes of his predecessors. It is only after careful comparison
that we discover, in this picture of the Rucellai for example, a
distinctly fresh endeavour to express emotion and to depict life. The
outstretched arms of the infant Christ have been copied from nature, not
merely borrowed from tradition. The six kneeling angels display variety of
attitude suited to several shades of devout affection and adoring service.
The head of the Madonna, heavy as it is and conventional in type, still
strives to represent maternal affection mingled with an almost melancholy
reverence. Prolonging our study, we are led to ask whether the painter
might not have painted more freely had he chosen--whether, in fact, he was
not bound down to the antique mode of presentation consecrated by devout
tradition. This question occurs with even greater force before the
wall-paintings ascribed to Cimabue in the church of S. Francis at Assisi.

It remained for Giotto Bondone, born at Vespignano in 1276, just at the
date of Niccola Pisano's death, to carry painting in his lifetime even
further than the Pisan sculptor had advanced the sister art. Cimabue, so
runs a legend luckily not yet discredited, found the child Giotto among
the sheep-folds on the solemn Tuscan hill-side, drawing with boyish art
the outline of a sheep upon a stone.[126] The master recognised his
talent, and took him from his father's cottage to the Florentine
_bottega_, much as young Haydn was taken by Renter to S. Stephen's at
Vienna. Gifted with a large and comprehensive intellect, capable of
sustained labour, and devoted with the unaffected zeal of a good craftsman
to his art, Giotto in the course of his long career filled Italy with work
t