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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![sent the marriage of Joanna of Naples and Louis of Taranto; but Giotto died in 1336, and these famous espousals took place in 1347 ; a dry date will sometimes confound a very pretty theory. In the Sacrament of Ordination there is a group of chanting hoys, in which the various expressions of the act of singing are given with truth of imitation not unworthy of the master himself, which made Giotto the wonder of his day. His paintings from the Apocalypse in the church of Santa Chiara were whitewashed over, about two centuries ago, by a certain prior of the-convent, because, in the opinion of this barbarian, they made the church look dark! Giotto returned [from Naples] to his native city with great increase of riches and fame. He continued his works with unabated application, assisted by his pupils, for his school was now the most famous in Italy. Like most of the early Italian artists, he was an architect and sculptor, as well as a painter ; and his last public work was the exquisitely beautiful Cam- panile or Bell-tower at Florence, founded in 1334, for which he made all the designs, and even executed with his own hand the models for the sculpture on the three lower divisions. According to Ivugler, they form a regular series of subjects illustrating the development of human culture, through religion and laws, “ conceived,” says the same authority, “with pro- found wisdom.” When the emperor Charles V. saw this ele- gant structure, he exclaimed that it ought to be “ kept under glass.” In the same allegorical taste Giotto painted many pictures of the Virtues and Vices, ingeniously invented and rendered with great attention to natural and appropriate ex- pression. In these and similar representations we trace dis- tinctly the influence of the genius of Dante. A short time before his death Giotto was invited to Milan by Azzo Visconti. He executed some admirable frescoes in the ancient palace of the dukes of Milan ; but these have per- ished. Finally, having returned to Florence, he soon after- wards died — “ yielding up his soul to God in the year 1336 ; and having been,” adds Vasari, “no less a good Christian than an excellent painter: ” he was honorably interred in the church of Santa Maria del Fiore, where his master Cimabue had been laid with similar honors thirty-five years before. Lorenzo de’ Medici afterwards placed above his tomb his effigy in marble. Giotto left four sons and four daughters, but we do not hear](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24877888_0059.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
