door on the left
hand; and for this work he was much praised and rewarded by the people
of Pisa. In the same city of Pisa, at the request of the then Abbot of
S. Paolo in Ripa d'Arno, he made a S. Agnes on a little panel, and round
her, with little figures, all the stories of her life; which little
panel is to-day over the altar of the Virgins in the said church.

By reason of these works, then, the name of Cimabue being very famous
everywhere, he was brought to Assisi, a city of Umbria, where, in
company with certain Greek masters, in the lower Church of S.
Francesco, he painted part of the vaulting, and on the walls the life of
Jesus Christ and that of S. Francis. In these pictures he surpassed by a
long way those Greek painters; wherefore, growing in courage, he began
by his own self to paint the upper church in fresco, and in the chief
apse, over the choir, on four sides, he made certain stories of Our
Lady--namely, her death; when her soul is borne by Christ to Heaven upon
a throne of clouds; and when, in the midst of a choir of angels, He
crowns her, with a great number of saints below, both male and female,
now eaten away by time and by dust. Next, in the sections of the
vaulting of the said church, which are five, he painted in like manner
many scenes. In the first, over the choir, he made the four Evangelists,
larger than life, and so well that to-day there is still recognized in
them much that is good, and the freshness of the colours in the flesh
shows that painting began to make great progress in fresco work through
the labours of Cimabue. The second section he made full of golden stars
on a ground of ultramarine. In the third he made in certain medallions
Jesus Christ, the Virgin His mother, S. John the Baptist, and S.
Francis--namely, in every medallion one of these figures, and in every
quarter segment of the vaulting a medallion. And between this and the
fifth section he painted the fourth with golden stars, as above, on a
ground of ultramarine. In the fifth he painted the four Doctors of the
Church, and beside each one of these one of the four chief Religious
Orders--a work truly laborious and executed with infinite diligence. The
vaulting finished, he wrought, also in fresco, the upper walls of the
whole left-hand side of the church, making towards the high-altar,
between the windows and right up to the vaulting, eight scenes from the
Old Testament, commencing from the beginning of Genesis and following