DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61902#0123
THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE.
103
THE CATHEDRAL BUILDERS.
CHAPTER IV.
GROUP I.—ARNOLFO—GIOTTO.
It is curious to step out of the disturbed and turbulent
city life, in which nobles and commons, poets, historians,
and philosophers, were revolving in a continual turmoil,
now up, now down, falling and rising and falling again,
with all the bitter hopes and fears natural and vicissitudes
so painful, into the artist world, where no such ups or
downs seem to have existed, but where work went on
placidly whatever happened. In later days, indeed, such
a fiery soul as Michael Angelo might storm or struggle with
his country, but the burly peasant Giotto would seem to
have taken little thought what or who his employers were,
or what was happening in the city where he went about
the streets busy and humorous, always some joke on his
lips, always some beautiful thought in his heart. Dante
might toss himself like a caged bird against the stone walls
and closely-barred gates which neither fear nor entreaty
would open to him ; Dino Compagni, citizen and chronicler,
might first create the history which “ Io, Dino ” afterward
recorded ; but the painters took no such prominent place
in the world. Enough for them that it was all to be theirs
afterward, and that when the factions and the families
had done their worst and torn each other in pieces, and all
the magnificoes had had their day, they were to pass every
103
THE CATHEDRAL BUILDERS.
CHAPTER IV.
GROUP I.—ARNOLFO—GIOTTO.
It is curious to step out of the disturbed and turbulent
city life, in which nobles and commons, poets, historians,
and philosophers, were revolving in a continual turmoil,
now up, now down, falling and rising and falling again,
with all the bitter hopes and fears natural and vicissitudes
so painful, into the artist world, where no such ups or
downs seem to have existed, but where work went on
placidly whatever happened. In later days, indeed, such
a fiery soul as Michael Angelo might storm or struggle with
his country, but the burly peasant Giotto would seem to
have taken little thought what or who his employers were,
or what was happening in the city where he went about
the streets busy and humorous, always some joke on his
lips, always some beautiful thought in his heart. Dante
might toss himself like a caged bird against the stone walls
and closely-barred gates which neither fear nor entreaty
would open to him ; Dino Compagni, citizen and chronicler,
might first create the history which “ Io, Dino ” afterward
recorded ; but the painters took no such prominent place
in the world. Enough for them that it was all to be theirs
afterward, and that when the factions and the families
had done their worst and torn each other in pieces, and all
the magnificoes had had their day, they were to pass every