spend the whole day, as one who felt
himself led thereto by nature, in drawing, on books and other papers,
men, horses, houses, and diverse other things of fancy; to which natural
inclination fortune was favourable, for certain Greek painters had been
summoned to Florence by those who then governed the city, for nothing
else but to restore to Florence the art of painting, which was rather
out of mind than out of fashion, and they began, among the other works
undertaken in the city, the Chapel of the Gondi, whereof to-day the
vaulting and the walls are little less than eaten away by time, as may
be seen in S. Maria Novella beside the principal chapel, where it
stands. Wherefore Cimabue, having begun to take his first steps in this
art which pleased him, playing truant often from school, would stand the
livelong day watching these masters at work, in a manner that, being
judged by his father and by these painters to be in such wise fitted
for painting that there could be hoped for him, applying himself to this
profession, an honourable success, to his own no small satisfaction he
was apprenticed by the said father to these men; whereupon, exercising
himself without ceasing, in a short time nature assisted him so greatly
that he surpassed by a long way, both in drawing and in colouring, the
manner of the masters who were teaching him. For they, giving no thought
to making any advance, had made those works in that fashion wherein they
are seen to-day--that is, not in the good ancient manner of the Greeks
but in that rude modern manner of those times; and because, although he
imitated these Greeks, he added much perfection to the art, relieving it
of a great part of their rude manner, he gave honour to his country with
his name and with the works that he made, to which witness is borne in
Florence by the pictures that he wrought, such as the front of the altar
in S. Cecilia, and in S. Croce a panel with a Madonna, which was and
still is placed against a pilaster on the right within the choir. After
this, he made a S. Francis on a small panel on a gold ground, and
portrayed him from nature (which was something new in those times) as
best he knew, and round him all the stories of his life, in twenty small
pictures full of little figures on a gold ground.

Having next undertaken to make a large panel for the monks of
Vallombrosa, in the Abbey of S. Trinita in Florence, he showed in that
work (using therein great diligence, so a