DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51584#0058
54
EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS.
most extraordinary wisdom, and learned in the law
above all others, yet was in body mean and de-
formed, with, thereunto, a flat, currish (ricagnato)
physiognomy ; and Messer Giotto, who was not in
face or person one whit better favoured than the
said Messer Forese, had a genius of that excellence,
that there was nothing which nature (who is the
mother of all things) could bring forth, but he with
his ready pencil would so wondrously imitate it,
that it seemed not only similar, but the same ; thus
deluding the visual sense of men, so that they
deemed that what was only pictured before them
did in reality exist. And seeing that through
Giotto that art was restored to light which had
been for many centuries buried (through fault of
those who, in painting, addressed themselves to
please the eye of the vulgar, and not to content the
understanding of the wise), I esteem him worthy
to be placed among those who have made famous
and glorious this our city of Florence. Neverthe-
less, though so great a man in his art, he was but
little in person, and, as I have said, ill-favoured
enough. Now it happened that Messer Forese and
Giotto had possessions in land in Mugello, which
is on the road leading from Florence to Bologna,
and thither they rode one day on their respective
affairs, Messer Forese being mounted on a sorry
hired jade, and the other in no better ease. It was
summer, and the rain came on suddenly and
EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS.
most extraordinary wisdom, and learned in the law
above all others, yet was in body mean and de-
formed, with, thereunto, a flat, currish (ricagnato)
physiognomy ; and Messer Giotto, who was not in
face or person one whit better favoured than the
said Messer Forese, had a genius of that excellence,
that there was nothing which nature (who is the
mother of all things) could bring forth, but he with
his ready pencil would so wondrously imitate it,
that it seemed not only similar, but the same ; thus
deluding the visual sense of men, so that they
deemed that what was only pictured before them
did in reality exist. And seeing that through
Giotto that art was restored to light which had
been for many centuries buried (through fault of
those who, in painting, addressed themselves to
please the eye of the vulgar, and not to content the
understanding of the wise), I esteem him worthy
to be placed among those who have made famous
and glorious this our city of Florence. Neverthe-
less, though so great a man in his art, he was but
little in person, and, as I have said, ill-favoured
enough. Now it happened that Messer Forese and
Giotto had possessions in land in Mugello, which
is on the road leading from Florence to Bologna,
and thither they rode one day on their respective
affairs, Messer Forese being mounted on a sorry
hired jade, and the other in no better ease. It was
summer, and the rain came on suddenly and