s a rumor "that a certain
precious little tablet which Buonarotti eyed like a lover" has been
discovered by somebody. If this rumor is true, the speaker feels
that Giotto, whom he has so loved, has played him false,
in not favoring him with the precious find. See St. 30.
"The opinion which his contemporaries entertained of Giotto,
as the greatest genius in the arts which Italy in that age possessed,
has been perpetuated by Dante in the lines in which the illuminator,
Oderigi, says:--

"`In painting Cimabue fain had thought
To lord the field; now Giotto has the cry,
So that the other's fame in shade is brought'
(Dante, `Purg.' xi. 93).

"Giotto di Bondone was born at Del Colle, a village in the commune
of Vespignano near Florence, according to Vasari, A.D. 1276,
but more probably A.D. 1266. He went through his apprenticeship
under Cimabue, and practised as a painter and architect
not only in Florence, but in various parts of Italy, in free cities
as well as in the courts of princes. . . . On April 12, 1334,
Giotto was appointed by the civic authorities of Florence,
chief master of the Cathedral works, the city fortifications,
and all public architectural undertakings, in an instrument of which
the wording constitutes the most affectionate homage to
the `great and dear master'. Giotto died January 8, 1337."
--Woltmann and Woermann's History of Painting.

For a good account of the Campanile, see Susan and Joanna Horner's
`Walks in Florence', v. I, pp. 62-66; Art. in `Macmillan's Mag.',
April, 1877, by Sidney Colvin,--`Giotto's Gospel of Labor'.

3.

Giotto, how, with that soul of yours,
Could you play me false who loved you so?
Some slights if a certain heart endures
Yet it feels, I would have your fellows know!
I' faith, I perceive not why I should care
To break a silence that suits them best,
But the thing grows somewhat hard to bear
When I find a Giotto join the rest.

4.

On the arch where olives overhead
Print the blue sky with twig and leaf
(That sharp-curled leaf which they never shed),
'Twixt the aloes, I used to learn in chief,
And mark through the winter afternoons,
By a gift God grants me now and then,
In the mild decline of those suns like moons,
Who walked in Florence, besides her men.

--
St. 4. By a gift God grants me now and then: the g