owing into a sail, which has so
high a relief that a real one would not have more; and moreover it is
difficult to have to make with those pieces of glass a unity such as
that which is seen in the lights and shadows of so great a sail, which
could only be equalled by the brush with great difficulty and by making
every possible effort; not to mention that in a fisherman, who is
fishing from a rock with a line, there is seen an attitude of extreme
patience proper to that art, and in his face the hope and the wish to
make a catch. Under this work are three little arches in fresco, of
which, since they are for the greater part spoilt, I will say no more.
The praises universally given by craftsmen to this work are well
deserved.

Giotto, having afterwards painted on a panel a large Crucifix coloured
in distemper, for the Minerva, a church of the Preaching Friars,
returned to his own country, having been abroad six years. But no long
time after, by reason of the death of Pope Benedict IX, Clement V was
created Pope in Perugia, and Giotto was forced to betake himself with
that Pope to the place where he brought his Court, to Avignon, in order
to do certain works there; and having gone there, he made, not only in
Avignon but in many other places in France, many very beautiful panels
and pictures in fresco, which pleased the Pontiff and the whole Court
infinitely. Wherefore, the work dispatched, the Pope dismissed him
lovingly and with many gifts, and he returned home no less rich than
honoured and famous; and among the rest he brought back the portrait of
that Pope, which he gave afterwards to Taddeo Gaddi, his disciple. And
this return of Giotto to Florence was in the year 1316. But it was not
granted to him to stay long in Florence, because, being summoned to
Padua by the agency of the Signori della Scala, he painted a very
beautiful chapel in the Santo, a church built in those times. From there
he went to Verona, where, for Messer Cane, he made certain pictures in
his palace, and in particular the portrait of that lord; and a panel for
the Friars of S. Francis. These works completed, in returning to Tuscany
he was forced to stay in Ferrara, and he painted at the behest of those
Signori d'Este, in their palace and in S. Agostino, some works that are
still seen there to-day. Meanwhile, it coming to the ears of Dante, poet
of Florence, that Giotto was in Ferrara, he so contrived that he brought
him to Ravenna, where he was livi