r the first room of the collection proper and begin at
the very beginning of Tuscan art, for this collection is historical
and not fortuitous like that of the Pitti. The student may here trace
the progress of Tuscan painting from the level to the highest peaks
and downwards again. The Accademia was established with this purpose
by that enlightened prince, Peter Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany,
in 1784. Other pictures not wholly within his scheme have been added
since, together with the Michelangelo statues and casts; but they do
not impair the original idea. For the serious student the first room
is of far the most importance, for there he may begin with Cimabue
(? 1240-? 1302), and Giotto (1267-? 1337), and pass steadily to Luca
Signorelli (? 1450-1523). For the most part the pictures in this room
appeal to the inquirer rather than the sightseer; but there is not
one that is without interest, while three works of extraordinary charm
have thoughtfully been enisled, on screens, for special attention--a
Fra Angelico, a Fabriano, and a Ghirlandaio. Before reaching these,
let us look at the walls.

The first large picture, on the left, the Cimabue, marks the transition
from Byzantine art to Italian art. Giovanni Cimabue, who was to be
the forerunner of the new art, was born about 1240. At that time
there was plenty of painting in Italy, but it was Greek, the work of
artists at Constantinople (Byzantium), the centre of Christianity in
the eastern half of the Roman Empire and the fount of ecclesiastical
energy, and it was crude workmanship, existing purely as an accessory
of worship. Cimabue, of whom, I may say, almost nothing definite
is known, and upon whom the delightful but casual old Vasari is the
earliest authority, as Dante was his first eulogist, carried on the
Byzantine tradition, but breathed a little life into it. In his picture
here we see him feeling his way from the unemotional painted symbols
of the Faith to humanity itself. One can understand this large panel
being carried (as we know the similar one at S. Maria Novella was)
in procession and worshipped, but it is nearer to the icon of the
Russian peasant of today than to a Raphael. The Madonna is above
life; the Child is a little man. This was painted, say, in 1280,
as an altar-piece for the Badia of S. Trinita at Florence.

Next came Giotto, Cimabue's pupil, born about 1267, whom we have
met already as an architect, philosopher, and innovator; and in the
se