obstacles in any pursuit, than to those who do but follow on the path previously made clear, even though it be with a better and more carefully regulated march. Thus, we have certainly great obligations to Stefano, for he who, walking in darkness, encourages others by showing them the way, confers the benefit of making known the dangerous points, and warning from the false road, enables those who come after to arrive in time at the desired goal. This master also began to paint in fresco the chapel of Santa Caterina, in the church of San Domenico, in Perugia, but left it unfinished.
At the same time with Stefano, there flourished the Sienese painter Ugolino, his intimate friend, and who also enjoyed considerable reputation. He painted many pictures and decorated various chapels in different parts of Italy, but always adhered in great part to the Greek manner,[1] as one, who, having grown old in that method, was induced by a sort of obstinacy to follow the manner of Cimabue, rather than that of Giotto, which was nevertheless held in so much esteem. The picture on a gold ground,[2] of the high altar of Santa Croce, is one of Ugolino’s works, as is also another, which remained for many years on the high altar of Santa Maria Novella, but which is now in the Capitol. To this the Spaniards perform a most solemn pilgrimage every year, on the festival of St. James; they visit the picture also on other solemnities and mortuary offices of the same saint.[3]
Ugolino executed many other works, with great facility, but without departing from the manner of his master. He painted a Madonna on one of the brick piers of the Loggia which Lapo had built on the Piazza of Orsanmichele, and
- ↑ Ugolino painted in the Italian manner of that day, neither is there any great difference between the manner of Giotto and his own. He cannot justly be charged with obstinacy, since he was never a scholar of Giotto, but the disciple of Duccio, nor was he inferior to Stefano or any other master of that time.—See Lettere Sanesi, vol. ii, p. 201.
- ↑ This picture was removed to make way for the magnificent ciborium erected after the designs of Vasari himself'. Bottari believed it to be lost, but it was discovered by Della Valle in the dormitory of the neighbouring convent. Later writers, following a MS. note of the Cavalier Puccini, declare it to have been sold to an Englishman at the commencement of the present century for a few crowns.—See further, Waagen, Art and Artists in England.
- ↑ No trace of this picture can now be discovered.
