master ; one most especially, who, speaking with others, holds his hand before his face while he spits into the sea, deserves to be remembered. And without doubt this may be called one of the best of the works of Giotto ; for though the number of figures is so great, there is not one which does not display great perfection of art, and which has not a character peculiar to itself. It is not wonderful therefore that the Signor Malatesta should praise the painter highly, and reward him magnificently.
Having finished his labours for this noble, Giotto executed a painting at the request of a Florentine Prior, who was then at San Cataldo of Rimini: the subject is St. Thomas Aquinas reading to his monks ; and the work is without the door of the church. He then departed, and returned to Ravenna, where he painted a chapel in fresco in the church of St. John the Evangelist, which was highly celebrated.[1] After this, Giotto returned to Florence, rich in honours, and with sufficient worldly wealth. He there painted a crucifix in wood,[2] larger than the natural size, in distemper, on a ground of gold, for the church of St. Mark, and which was placed in the south aisle of the church. He executed a similar work for the church of Santa Maria Novella, being aided in this last by Puccio Capanna, his scholar : it may still be seen over the principal door of the church, on the right as you enter, and over the tomb of the Gaddi family. In the same church he painted a St. Louis, for Paolo di Lotto d’Ardinghelli, at the feet of which is the portrait of the donor and his wife, taken from nature.[3]
In the year 1327, Guido Tarlati da Pietramala, Bishop and Lord of Arezzo, died at Massa di Maremma, when re-
- ↑ Other frescoes by Giotto are still to be seen in Ravenna ; in the chapel of St. Bartholomew, in the church of San Giovanni della Sagra, for example, where are the Holy Evangelists, with their symbols, together with the doctors of the church—St. Gregory, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Jerome. These pictures were restored by Francesco Zanoni, of Padua, towards the close of the last century. There are, besides, others in the convent of Santa Chiara, near the palace of Theodoric, and in the presbytery of Santa Maria in Porto.
- ↑ The admirable crucifix of St. Mark’s, as well as that in Santa Maria Novella, are still in good preservation.
- ↑ The fate of this St. Louis is not known ; but it is supposed to have been destroyed in repairing the church.
