like to others that might be found, I wish it to be remembered that the
portrait made of a man when he was eighteen or twenty years old will
never be like to the portrait that may have been made fifteen or twenty
years later. To this it must be added that portraits in drawing are
never so like as are those in colours, not to mention that the
engravers, who have no draughtsmanship, always rob the faces (being
unable or not knowing how to make exactly those minutenesses that make
them good and true to life) of that perfection which is rarely or never
found in portraits cut in wood. In short, how great have been therein my
labour, expense, and diligence, will be evident to those who, in
reading, will see whence I have to the best of my ability unearthed
them.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: The libbra is twelve ounces of our ordinary pound
(avoirdupois).]

[Footnote 5: It is difficult to find a rendering of "cappella maggiore"
that is absolutely satisfactory. There may be a chapel in some churches
that is actually larger than the "principal chapel." The principal
chapel generally contains the choir, but not always, and when Vasari
wants to say "choir" he uses the word "coro." The rendering "principal
chapel" has therefore been adopted as the least misleading.]

CONCERNING THE LIVES OF THE PAINTERS, SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS, WHO
HAVE LIVED FROM CIMABUE TO THE PRESENT DAY. WRITTEN BY MESSER GIORGIO
VASARI, PAINTER OF AREZZO

GIOVANNI CIMABUE

[Illustration: _Alinari_

MADONNA, CHILD AND ANGELS

(_After the painting by_ Cimabue. _Paris: Louvre, 1260_)]

LIFE OF GIOVANNI CIMABUE,

PAINTER OF FLORENCE

By the infinite flood of evils which had laid prostrate and submerged
poor Italy there had not only been ruined everything that could truly
claim the name of building, but there had been blotted out (and this was
of graver import) the whole body of the craftsmen, when, by the will of
God, in the city of Florence, in the year 1240, there was born, to give
the first light to the art of painting, Giovanni, surnamed Cimabue, of
the family, noble in those times, of Cimabue. He, while growing up,
being judged by his father and by others to have a beautiful and acute
intelligence, was sent, to the end that he might exercise himself in
letters, to a master in S. Maria Novella, his relative, who was then
teaching grammar to the novices of that convent; but Cimabue, in place
of attending to his letters, would