DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.57409#0138
122
LIVES OF THE ARTISTS.
place ; and for the rest I refer my reader to Franco and other
writers.
The memory of Giotto is not only preserved in his own
works, but is also consecrated in the writings of the authors
of those times, he being the master by whom the true art of
painting was recovered, after it had been lost during many
years preceding his time : wherefore, by a public decree,
and by command of the elder Lorenzo de’ Medici, of glorious
memory, who bore him a particular affection, and greatly
admired the talent of this distinguished man, his bust was
placed in Santa Maria del Fiore, being sculptured in marble
by Benedetto da Maj ano, an excellent sculptor, and the fol-
lowing verses, by that divine poet, Messer Angelo Poliziano,
were engraved thereon, to the end, that all who should dis-
tinguish themselves in any profession might have hope of
receiving such memorials at the hands of others, his succes-
sors, as Giotto deserved and received from the hands of
Lorenzo :—
“ Ille ego sum, per quem pictura extinta revixit,
Cui quam recta manus, tarn fuit et facilis
Naturae deerat nostra: quod defuit arti:
Plus licuit nulli pingere, nee melius
Miraris turrim egregiam sacro acre sonantem ?
Hsec quoque de modulo crevit ad astra meo,
Denique sum Jottus, quid opus fuit ilia referre?
Hoc nomen longi carminis instar erit.”
And that those who shall come after, may better know the
excellence of this great man, and may judge him from
drawings by his own hand, there are some that are wonder-
fully beautiful preserved in my book above-mentioned, and
which I have collected with great diligence, as well as with
much labour and expense.
LIVES OF THE ARTISTS.
place ; and for the rest I refer my reader to Franco and other
writers.
The memory of Giotto is not only preserved in his own
works, but is also consecrated in the writings of the authors
of those times, he being the master by whom the true art of
painting was recovered, after it had been lost during many
years preceding his time : wherefore, by a public decree,
and by command of the elder Lorenzo de’ Medici, of glorious
memory, who bore him a particular affection, and greatly
admired the talent of this distinguished man, his bust was
placed in Santa Maria del Fiore, being sculptured in marble
by Benedetto da Maj ano, an excellent sculptor, and the fol-
lowing verses, by that divine poet, Messer Angelo Poliziano,
were engraved thereon, to the end, that all who should dis-
tinguish themselves in any profession might have hope of
receiving such memorials at the hands of others, his succes-
sors, as Giotto deserved and received from the hands of
Lorenzo :—
“ Ille ego sum, per quem pictura extinta revixit,
Cui quam recta manus, tarn fuit et facilis
Naturae deerat nostra: quod defuit arti:
Plus licuit nulli pingere, nee melius
Miraris turrim egregiam sacro acre sonantem ?
Hsec quoque de modulo crevit ad astra meo,
Denique sum Jottus, quid opus fuit ilia referre?
Hoc nomen longi carminis instar erit.”
And that those who shall come after, may better know the
excellence of this great man, and may judge him from
drawings by his own hand, there are some that are wonder-
fully beautiful preserved in my book above-mentioned, and
which I have collected with great diligence, as well as with
much labour and expense.