ned memory of Giotto not only in the
works that issued from his hands, but in those also that issued from the
hand of the writers of those times, he having been the man who recovered
the true method of painting, which had been lost for many years before
him; therefore, by public decree and by the effort and particular
affection of the elder Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent, in
admiration of the talent of so great a man his portrait was placed in S.
Maria del Fiore, carved in marble by Benedetto da Maiano, an excellent
sculptor, together with the verses written below, made by that divine
man, Messer Angelo Poliziano, to the end that those who should become
excellent in any profession whatsoever might be able to cherish a hope
of obtaining, from others, such memorials as these that Giotto deserved
and obtained in liberal measure from his goodness:

Ille ego sum, per quem pictura extincta revixit,
Cui quam recta manus, tam fuit et facilis.
Naturae deerat nostrae quod defuit arti;
Plus licuit nulli pingere, nec melius.
Miraris turrim egregiam sacro aere sonantem?
Haec quoque de modulo crevit ad astra meo.
Denique sum Jottus, quid opus fuit illa referre?
Hoc nomen longi carminis instar erit.

And to the end that those who come after may be able to see drawings by
the very hand of Giotto, and from these to recognize all the more the
excellence of so great a man, in our aforesaid book there are some that
are marvellous, sought out by me with no less diligence than labour and
expense.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 11: See note on p. 57.]

[Footnote 12: See note on p. 57.]

[Footnote 13: See note on p. 57.]

AGOSTINO AND AGNOLO OF SIENA

LIFE OF AGOSTINO AND AGNOLO OF SIENA,

SCULPTORS AND ARCHITECTS

Among others who exercised themselves in the school of the sculptors
Giovanni and Niccola of Pisa, Agostino and Agnolo, sculptors of Siena,
of whom we are at present about to write the Life, became very excellent
for those times. These, according to what I find, were born from a
father and mother of Siena, and their forefathers were architects,
seeing that in the year 1190, under the rule of the three Consuls, they
brought to perfection the Fontebranda, and afterwards, in the following
year, under the same Consulate, the Customs-house of that city and other
buildings. And in truth it is clear that very often the seeds of talent
germinate in the houses where th