e finished writing his
book on the arts the 31st day of July 1437; was born soon after 1350;
had been twelve years the disciple of Agnolo Gaddi, who died 1387; son
of Taddeo Gaddi, the disciple and godson of Giotto, the "father of
modern art." The precepts which he delivers are therefore those
acquired in immediate succession from that great first master, and as
the secrets of his art. We grieve to add that the work was written in
prison, dated from the Stinche in Florence, at eighty years of age, and
in extreme poverty; a proof among many, that the patronage of the arts
in those days was not a mantle of charity of adequate dimensions to
cover the wants of the numerous professors of the art; while it tells
somewhat unfavourably for the gratitude of the contemporary world to
know, that the one work alone of this deserted old man, the Virgin in
the Hospital of Bonifacio Lupi, (so well coloured, says Vasari, that it
is to this day in good preservation,) would produce a sum that would
probably not only be sufficient to have paid his debts, but to have
equalled the wants of no small portion of his prolonged life. The work
itself seems to bear testimony to an earnest, amiable, and religious
mind; there would appear, therefore, no moral fault to which to
attribute his unfortunate condition. We must suppose that struggles with
the world's difficulties, incompatible though they seem with art, are
necessary; and that the cradle of genius must be first rocked by
Want--that necessity is the great "Magister Artium;" for we find it has
ever been so, even to the present enlightened age. A few favourites
occupy the Goshen of patronage, who at their death are not remembered,
and whose works _do_ "follow them;" and then, the works of those who
have lived neglected, lived, worked, and died in penury, are eagerly
sought after at any price. Such men, whilst they lived, were yet
teaching a lesson in taste which the world were _slow to learn_; for it
is in the nature of genius to be before the age, and in some respects to
teach a novelty, which the world in not prepared to receive. Genius
works on by the compulsion of its own nature, and the world is improved
by it when it can no longer reward it but by a too late admiration, that
reaches not, as far as we know, the dead. The complaint of Horace has
been ever justified, and is still, in the eager search after works of
our Wilson and Gainsborough--

"Virtutem incolumem odimus,
Sublata