present day.
But it is now time to come to the Life of Giovanni Cimabue, and even as he gave the first beginning to the new method of drawing and painting, so it is just and expedient that he should give it to the Lives, in which I will do my utmost to observe, the most that I can, the order of their manners rather than that of time. And in describing the forms and features of the craftsmen I will be brief, seeing that their portraits, which have been collected by me with no less cost and fatigue than diligence, will show better what sort of men the craftsmen themselves were in appearance than describing them could ever do; and if the portrait of any one of them should be wanting, that is not through my fault but by reason of its being nowhere found. And if the said portraits were not peradventure to appear to someone to be absolutely 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.
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
Alinari
MADONNA, CHILD AND ANGELS
(After the painting by Cimabue. Paris: Louvre, 1260) View larger image
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 spend the whole day, as one who felt himself led thereto by nature, in drawing, on books and other papers, men, horses, houses, and diverse other things of fancy; to which natural inclination fortune was favourable, for certain Greek painters had been summoned to Florence by those who then governed the city, for nothing else but to restore to Florence the art of painting, which was rather out of mind than out of fashion, and they began, among the other works undertaken in the city, the Chapel of the Gondi, whereof to-day the vaulting and the walls are little less than eaten away by time, as may be seen in S. Maria Novella beside the principal chapel, where it stands. Wherefore Cimabue, having begun to take his first steps in this art which pleased him, playing truant often from school, would stand the livelong day watching these masters at work, in a manner that, being judged by his father and by these painters to be in such wise fitted for painting that there could be hoped for him, applying himself to this profession, an honourable success, to his own no small satisfaction he was apprenticed by the said father to these men; whereupon, exercising himself without ceasing, in a short time nature assisted him so greatly that he surpassed by a long way, both in drawing and in colouring, the manner of the masters who were teaching him. For they, giving no thought to making any advance, had made those works in that fashion wherein they are seen to-day—that is, not in the good ancient manner of the Greeks but in that rude modern manner of those times; and because, although he imitated these Greeks, he added much perfection to the art, relieving it of a great part of their rude manner, he gave honour to his country with his name and with the works that he made, to which witness is borne in Florence by the pictures that he wrought, such as the front of the altar in S. Cecilia, and in S. Croce a panel with a Madonna, which was and still is placed against a pilaster on the right within the choir. After this, he made a S. Francis on a small panel on a gold ground, and portrayed him from nature (which was something new in those times) as best he knew, and round him all the stories of his life, in twenty small pictures full of little figures on a gold ground.
Having next undertaken to make a large panel for the monks of Vallombrosa, in the Abbey of S. Trinita in Florence, he showed in that work (using therein great diligence, so as to rise equal to the esteem which had already been conceived of him) better inventions and a beautiful method in the attitude of a Madonna, whom he made with the Child in her arms and with many angels round her in adoration, on a gold ground; which panel, being finished, was placed by these monks over the high-altar of the said church, and being afterwards removed, in order to give that place to the panel by Alesso Baldovinetti which is there to-day, it was placed in a smaller chapel in the left-hand aisle of the said church.
Working next in fresco on the Hospital of the Porcellana, at the corner of the Via Nuova which goes into the Borg' Ognissanti, on the façade which has in the middle the principal door, and making on one side the Annunciation of the Virgin by the Angel, and on the other Jesus Christ with Cleophas and Luke, figures as large as life, he swept away that ancient manner, making the draperies, the vestments, and everything else in this work, a little more lively and more natural and softer than the manner of these Greeks, all full of lines and profiles both in mosaic and in painting; which manner, rough, rude, and vulgar, the painters of those times, not by means of study, but by a certain convention, had taught one to the other for many and many a year, without ever thinking of bettering their draughtsmanship, of beauty of colouring, or of any invention that might be good.
Cimabue, being summoned again after this work by the same Prior who had caused him to make the works in S. Croce, made him a large Crucifix on wood, which is still seen to-day in the church; which work was the reason, it appearing to the Prior that he had been well served, that he took him to S. Francesco in Pisa, their convent, in order to make a S. Francis on a panel, which was held by these people to be a most rare work, there being seen therein a certain greater quality of excellence, both in the air of the heads and in the folds of the draperies, than had been shown in the Greek manner up to that time by anyone who had wrought anything, not only in Pisa, but in all Italy. Cimabue having next made for the same church on a large panel the image of Our Lady, with the Child in her arms and with many angels round her, also on a ground of gold, it was after no long time removed from where it had been set up the first time, in order to make there the marble altar that is there at present, and was placed within the church beside the door on the left hand; and for this work he was much praised and rewarded by the people of Pisa. In the same city of Pisa, at the request of the then Abbot of S. Paolo in Ripa d'Arno, he made a S. Agnes on a little panel, and round her, with little figures, all the stories of her life; which little panel is to-day over the altar of the Virgins in the said church.
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