DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61902#0133
the makers of Florence.
113
Palazzo in rugged strength, as it still stands with walls
like living rock and heavy Tuscan cornices, though it was
reserved to the altri maestri to put upon it the wonderful
crown of its appropriate tower—and just as the round apse
of the cathedral approached completion; a hard fate for
a great builder to leave such noble work behind him half
done, yet the most common of all fates. He died, so far
as there is any certainty in dates, in 1300, during the brief
period of Dante’s power in Florence, when the poet was
one of the priors and much engaged in public business; and
the same eventful year concluded the existence of Cimabue,
the first of the great school of Florentine painters—he
whose picture was carried home to the church in which it
was to dwell for all the intervening centuries with such
pride and acclamation that the Borgo Allegri is said to
have taken its name from this wonderful rejoicing. What
if there might in reality be other reasons for naming the
suburban street outside the walls “Allegri?” The very
suggestion that this could have been its origin shows the
interest and excitement of the community over the first
great picture which had been made in Florence, gift of
heaven and work of genius for the glory and delight of the
city, a something which neither Pisa nor Sienna could
boast of, though it might be that their cathedrals were
further advanced.
“ Credette Cimabue nella pittura
Tenir lo campo,”
says the poet; and so he did, until a greater than he arose.
He was the first in whom the pictorial art had resurrection
after the thraldom of Byzantine tradition and the long
reign of mosaic; and in this respect will keep the field for-
ever, notwithstanding that he was surpassed, as nature or-
dained, by his own pupil, who in his turn yielded to the
next greater. Cimabue, however, kept to his painting more
113
Palazzo in rugged strength, as it still stands with walls
like living rock and heavy Tuscan cornices, though it was
reserved to the altri maestri to put upon it the wonderful
crown of its appropriate tower—and just as the round apse
of the cathedral approached completion; a hard fate for
a great builder to leave such noble work behind him half
done, yet the most common of all fates. He died, so far
as there is any certainty in dates, in 1300, during the brief
period of Dante’s power in Florence, when the poet was
one of the priors and much engaged in public business; and
the same eventful year concluded the existence of Cimabue,
the first of the great school of Florentine painters—he
whose picture was carried home to the church in which it
was to dwell for all the intervening centuries with such
pride and acclamation that the Borgo Allegri is said to
have taken its name from this wonderful rejoicing. What
if there might in reality be other reasons for naming the
suburban street outside the walls “Allegri?” The very
suggestion that this could have been its origin shows the
interest and excitement of the community over the first
great picture which had been made in Florence, gift of
heaven and work of genius for the glory and delight of the
city, a something which neither Pisa nor Sienna could
boast of, though it might be that their cathedrals were
further advanced.
“ Credette Cimabue nella pittura
Tenir lo campo,”
says the poet; and so he did, until a greater than he arose.
He was the first in whom the pictorial art had resurrection
after the thraldom of Byzantine tradition and the long
reign of mosaic; and in this respect will keep the field for-
ever, notwithstanding that he was surpassed, as nature or-
dained, by his own pupil, who in his turn yielded to the
next greater. Cimabue, however, kept to his painting more