s to rise equal to the esteem
which had already been conceived of him) better inventions and a
beautiful method in the attitude of a Madonna, whom he made with the
Child in her arms and with many angels round her in adoration, on a gold
ground; which panel, being finished, was placed by these monks over the
high-altar of the said church, and being afterwards removed, in order to
give that place to the panel by Alesso Baldovinetti which is there
to-day, it was placed in a smaller chapel in the left-hand aisle of the
said church.

Working next in fresco on the Hospital of the Porcellana, at the corner
of the Via Nuova which goes into the Borg' Ognissanti, on the facade
which has in the middle the principal door, and making on one side the
Annunciation of the Virgin by the Angel, and on the other Jesus Christ
with Cleophas and Luke, figures as large as life, he swept away that
ancient manner, making the draperies, the vestments, and everything else
in this work, a little more lively and more natural and softer than the
manner of these Greeks, all full of lines and profiles both in mosaic
and in painting; which manner, rough, rude, and vulgar, the painters of
those times, not by means of study, but by a certain convention, had
taught one to the other for many and many a year, without ever thinking
of bettering their draughtsmanship, of beauty of colouring, or of any
invention that might be good.

Cimabue, being summoned again after this work by the same Prior who had
caused him to make the works in S. Croce, made him a large Crucifix on
wood, which is still seen to-day in the church; which work was the
reason, it appearing to the Prior that he had been well served, that he
took him to S. Francesco in Pisa, their convent, in order to make a S.
Francis on a panel, which was held by these people to be a most rare
work, there being seen therein a certain greater quality of excellence,
both in the air of the heads and in the folds of the draperies, than had
been shown in the Greek manner up to that time by anyone who had wrought
anything, not only in Pisa, but in all Italy. Cimabue having next made
for the same church on a large panel the image of Our Lady, with the
Child in her arms and with many angels round her, also on a ground of
gold, it was after no long time removed from where it had been set up
the first time, in order to make there the marble altar that is there at
present, and was placed within the church beside the