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For much as there is to admire in Cimabue's painting, it is only the first flush of the dawn which it heralded, and though containing the germ of the future development of the art, is yet without any of the glory which in the fulness of time was to result from it.
The great churches of Florence A Dominican cathedral The "Decameron" begins Domenico Ghirlandaio Alessio Baldovinetti The Louvre The S. Maria Novella frescoes Giovanni and Lorenzo Tornabuoni Ruskin implacable Cimabue's Madonna Filippino Lippi Orcagna's "Last Judgment" The Cloisters of Florence The Spanish Chapel S. Dominic triumphant Giotto at his sweetest The "Wanderer's" doom The Piazza, as an arena.
The church was much injured by the French, and afterwards by the Austrians, both powers having quartered their troops within the holy precincts. Its old walls, however, are yet stalwart enough to outlast another set of frescos, and to see the beginning and the end of a new school of painting as long-lived as Cimabue's.
If Vasari is to be trusted, this visit of Charles of Anjou to Cimabue's studio took place in 1267; but neither the Malespini nor Villani mention it, and the old belief that the Borgo Allegri owed its name to the popular rejoicing at that time is now somewhat discredited. See Vasari, Le Monnier, 1846, vol. i. p. 225, note 4.
While according all due honour, and probably more, to Cimabue as the originator of modern painting, it is to his pupil, GIOTTO, that we are accustomed to look for the first developments of its possibilities. Had Cimabue's successors been as conservative as his instructors, we might still be not very much better off than if he had never lived.
The late Sir Frederick Leighton has preserved for future centuries this story, already six hundred years old, in a charming pageant picture: "Cimabue's Madonna carried through the streets of Florence." This was the first work ever exhibited by the English artist, and was an important step in the career which ended in the presidency of the Royal Academy.
Ghirlandajo's paintings are famous and worthy because they are such an advance on what was before him. Compare his men and women with those by Giotto. You know how much you found of interest and to admire in Giotto's pictures when you compared them with Cimabue's and with the old Greek Byzantine paintings. Just so compare those by Masaccio and Ghirlandajo with what was done before.
After a few more words, in which he told them to notice the type of Giotto's faces the eyes set near together, their too great length, though much better in this respect than Cimabue's, and the broad, rounded chins they turned away. "We have seen all we ought to stay here for to-day, and now we will drive over to Santa Croce.
The story of Cimabue's Madonna is one of the oft-told tales we like to hear repeated.
Well, of your half-hour for Santa Maria Novella, after Ghirlandajo's choir, Orcagna's transept, and Cimabue's Madonna, and the painted windows, have been seen properly, there will remain, suppose, at the utmost, a quarter of an hour for the Spanish Chapel. That will give you two minutes and a half for each side, two for the ceiling, and three for studying Murray's explanations or mine.
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