nted with a number of very beautiful
angels. The Baroncelli chapel in the same church contains a painting
in tempera by Giotto's hand, in which he has represented with great
care the coronation of Our Lady. It contains a very large number of
small figures and a choir of angels and saints, produced with great
diligence. On this work he has written his name and the date in gold
letters. Artists who reflect that at this time Giotto was laying the
foundations of the proper method of design and of colouring, unaided
by the advantages of seeing the light of the good style, will be
compelled to hold him in the highest veneration. In the same church
of S. Croce there are in addition a crucifix above the marble tomb of
Carlo Marzuppini of Arezzo, Our Lady with St John and the Magdalene
at the foot of the cross, and opposite on the other side of the
building an Annunciation towards the high altar over the tomb of
Lionardo Aretino, which has been restored by modern artists with
great lack of judgment. In the refectory he has done the history of
St Louis, a Last Supper, and a Tree of the Cross, while the presses
of the sacristy are decorated with some scenes from the lives of
Christ and of St Francis in small figures. At the church of the
Carmine in the chapel of St John the Baptist he represented the whole
of that saint's life in several pictures; and in the Palazzo della
parte Guelfa at Florence there is the history of the Christian faith
painted admirably by him in fresco, and containing the portrait of
Pope Clement IV., who founded that monastery to which he gave his
arms, retained by them ever since.

After these works Giotto set out from Florence for Assisi in order to
finish what Cimabue had begun there. On his way through Arezzo he
painted the chapel of St Francis, which is above the baptistery in
the Pieve there, and a St Francis and a St Dominic, portraits from
life, on a round pillar near to a most beautiful antique Corinthian
capital. In the Duomo outside Arezzo he decorated the interior of a
large chapel with the Stoning of St Stephen, an admirable composition
of figures. On completing these things he proceeded to Assisi, a
city of Umbria, whither he was summoned by fra Giovanni di Muro della
Marca, at that time general of the friars of St Francis. In the upper
church of this town he painted a series of thirty-two frescoes of the
life of St Francis, under the corridor which traverses the windows,
sixteen on each side,