Memoirs of the early Italian painters / by Anna Jameson; thoroughly revised and in part rewritten by Estelle M. Hurll.
- Anna Brownell Jameson
- Date:
- 1899
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Memoirs of the early Italian painters / by Anna Jameson; thoroughly revised and in part rewritten by Estelle M. Hurll. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![tioned by Vasari still exists—a St. Cecilia, painted for the altar of that saint, but now preserved in the Uftizi, Florence.1 He was soon afterwards employed by the monks of Vallom- brosa, for whom he painted a Madonna with Angels on a gold ground, now preserved in the Academy of the Fine Arts at Florence. He also painted a Crucifixion for the church of the Santa Croce,2 still to be seen there, and several pictures for the churches of Pisa, to the great contentment of the Pisans; and by these and other works his fame being spread far and near, he was called in the year 1265, when he was only twenty-five, to finish the frescoes in the church of St. Francis at Assisi, which had been begun by Greek painters and con- tinued by Giunta Pisano. The decoration of this celebrated church is memorable in the history of painting. It is known that many of the best artists of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were employed there, but only fragments of the earliest pictures exist, and the au- thenticity of those ascribed to Cimabue has been disputed by a great authority.3 Lanzi, however, and Dr. Kugler [also Crowe and Cavalcaselle], agree in attributing to him the paintings on the roof of the nave, representing, in medallions, the figures of Christ, the Madonna, St. John the Baptist, St. Francis, and four magnificent angels winged and sceptred. “In the lower corners of the triangles are represented naked Genii bearing tasteful vases on their heads; out of these grow rich foliage and flowers, on which hang other Genii, who pluck the fruit or lurk in the cups of the flowers.” 4 If these are really by the hand of Cimabue, we must allow that here is a great step in advance of the formal monotony of his Greek models. He executed many other pictures in this famous church, “ con diligenza infinita,” from the Old and New Testaments, in which, judging from the fragments which remain, he showed a decided improvement in drawing, in dignity of attitude, and in the expression of life, but still the figures have only just so 1 It is a doubtful picture, but interesting from the subject. St. Cecilia, in- stead of playing on her organ or listening to the angels, is here a solemn-looking matron seated on a throne, and holding in one hand the palm as martyr, and in the other the Gospel for which she died. 2 [Crowe and Cavalcaselle consider this “ rather of his time than by the painter himself.”] 3 Rumohr, Italienischc Forschungen. 4 Kugler, Handbook [p. 82 of Lavard’s revision].](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24877888_0042.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
