uch perfection; and the same men, conferring on the
difficulties of the sciences that they are learning, purge them and
render them so clear and easy that the greatest praise comes therefrom.
Whereas some, on the contrary, diabolically working with profession of
friendship, and using the cloak of truth and of lovingness to conceal
their envy and malice, rob them of their conceptions, in a manner that
the arts do not so soon attain to that excellence which they would if
love embraced the minds of the gracious spirits; as it truly bound
together Gaddo and Cimabue, and in like manner Andrea Tafi and Gaddo,
who was taken by Andrea into company with himself in order to finish the
mosaics of S. Giovanni, where that Gaddo learnt so much that afterwards
he made by himself the Prophets that are seen round that church in the
square spaces beneath the windows; and having wrought these by his own
self and with much better manner, they brought him very great fame.
Wherefore, growing in courage and being disposed to work by himself, he
applied himself continually to studying the Greek manner together with
that of Cimabue. Whence, after no long time, having become excellent in
the art, there was allotted to him by the Wardens of Works of S. Maria
del Fiore the lunette over the principal door within the church, wherein
he wrought in mosaic the Coronation of Our Lady; which work, when
finished, was judged by all the masters, both foreign and native, the
most beautiful that had yet been seen in all Italy in that craft, there
being recognized therein more design, more judgment, and more
diligence than in all the rest of the works in mosaic that were then
to be found in Italy.

Wherefore, the fame of this work spreading, Gaddo was called to Rome in
the year 1308 (which was the year after the fire that burnt down the
Church and the Palaces of the Lateran) by Clement V, for whom he
finished certain works in mosaic left imperfect by Fra Jacopo da
Turrita. He then wrought certain works, also in mosaic, in the Church of
S. Pietro, both in the principal chapel and throughout the church, and
in particular a large God the Father, with many other figures, on the
facade; and helping to finish some scenes in mosaic that are in the
facade of S. Maria Maggiore, he somewhat improved the manner, and
departed also a little from that manner of the Greeks, which had in it
nothing whatever of the good.

Next, having returned to Tuscany, he wrought in the Du