Greek manner,
on a beam that crosses the church. All which works were in great esteem
among the people of that age, although to-day by us they are not
esteemed save as old things, good when art was not, as it is to-day, at
its height. And seeing that Margaritone applied himself also to
architecture, although I have not made mention of any buildings made
with his design, because they are not of importance, I will yet not
forbear to say that he, according to what I find, made the design and
model of the Palazzo de' Governatori in the city of Ancona, after the
Greek manner, in the year 1270; and what is more, he made in sculpture,
on the principal front, eight windows, whereof each one has, in the
space in the middle, two columns that support in the middle two arches,
over which each window has a scene in half-relief that reaches from the
said small arches up to the top of the window; a scene, I say, from the
Old Testament, carved in a kind of stone that is found in that district.
Under the said windows, on the facade, there are certain words that are
understood rather at discretion than because they are either in good
form or rightly written, wherein there is read the date and in whose
time this work was made. By the hand of the same man, also, was the
design of the Church of S. Ciriaco in Ancona. Margaritone died at the
age of seventy-seven, disgusted, so it is said, to have lived so long,
seeing the age changed and the honours with the new craftsmen. He was
buried in the Duomo Vecchio without Arezzo, in a tomb of travertine, now
gone to ruin in the destruction of that church; and there was made for
him this epitaph:

HIC JACET ILLE BONUS PICTURA MARGARITONUS,
CUI REQUIEM DOMINUS TRADAT UBIQUE PIUS.

The portrait of Margaritone, by the hand of Spinello, is in the Story of
the Magi, in the said Duomo, and was copied by me before that church was
pulled down.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 9: See note on p. 57.]

[Footnote 10: See note on p. 57.]

GIOTTO

[Illustration: _Anderson_

THE DEATH OF S. FRANCIS

(_After the fresco by_ Giotto. _Florence: S. Croce_)]

LIFE OF GIOTTO,

PAINTER, SCULPTOR, AND ARCHITECT, OF FLORENCE

That very obligation which the craftsmen of painting owe to nature, who
serves continually as model to those who are ever wresting the good from
her best and most beautiful features and striving to counterfeit and to
imitate her, should be owed, in my belief, to Giotto, pa