us
he richly deserved the reward of 600 gold ducats which the delighted
Pope gave to him, bestowing many other favours upon him, so that it
became the talk of all Italy.

As I do not wish to omit a memorable circumstance concerning art, I
will notice here that there happened to be in Rome at this time a
great friend of Giotto named Oderigi d'Aggobbio, an excellent
illuminator of the day, who adorned many books for the Pope for the
palace library, though they are now mostly destroyed by time. In my
own book of old designs there are some remnants by his hand, and he
certainly was a clever artist. But a much better master than he was
Francis, an illuminator of Bologna, who did some very fair things for
the Pope for the same library at that very time, in a like style, as
may be seen in my book, where I have some designs by his hand, both
for painting and illuminations, among them an eagle, excellently
done, and a fine lion tearing up a tree. These two excellent
illuminators are referred to by Dante in the passage on the
vainglorious in the eleventh chapter of the Purgatorio, in these
lines:

"Oh, dissi lui, non se' tu Oderisi
L'onor d'Aggobbio e l'onor di quell' arte
Ch' alluminare e chimata in Parisi?
Frate, diss' egli, piu ridon le carte,
Che pennelleggia Franco Bolognese
L'onor e tutto or suo, e mio in parte."

When the Pope had seen these works he was so enchanted by Giotto's
style that he commissioned him to surround the walls of St Peter's
with scenes from the Old and New Testaments. Giotto therefore began
these, and painted the fresco of the angle, seven braccia high, which
is above the organ, and many other paintings, of which some have been
restored by other artists in our own day, and some have been either
destroyed or carried away from the old building of St Peter's during
the founding of the new walls and set under the organ. Among these
was a representation of Our Lady on a wall. In order that it might
not be thrown down with the rest, it was cut out, supported by beams
and iron, and so taken away. On account of its great beauty, it was
afterwards built into a place selected by the devotion of M. Niccolo
Acciancoli, a Florentine doctor enthusiastic over the excellent
things of art, who has richly adorned it with stucco and other modern
paintings. Giotto is also the author of the mosaic known as the
Navicella, which is over the three doors of