r, and imparted to the
forms some of the rotundity which they had lost. With him vanished the
sharp contrasts of hard lights, half-tones and shadows."

In a general way, it may be said that Cimabue showed himself forcible in
his paintings, as especially in heads of aged or strongly characterized
men; and, if the then existing development of art had allowed of this,
he might have had it in him to express the beautiful as well. He,
according to Vasari, was the first painter who wrote words upon his
paintings,--as, for instance, round the head, of Christ in a picture of
the Crucifixion, the words addressed to Mary, _Mulier ecce filius tuus_.

Other paintings still extant by Cimabue are the following:--In the
academy of Arts in Florence, a "Madonna and Child," with eight angels,
and some prophets in niches,--better than the Rucellai picture in
composition and study of nature, but more archaic in type, and the
colour now spoiled (this work was painted for the Badia of S. Trinita,
Florence); in the National Gallery, London, a "Madonna and Child with
Angels," which came from the Ugo Baldi collection, and had probably once
been in the church of S. Croce, Florence; in the Louvre, a "Madonna and
Child," with twenty-six medallions in the frame, originally in the
church of S. Francesco, Pisa. In the lower church of the Basilica of S.
Francesco at Assisi, Cimabue, succeeding Giunta da Pisa, probably
adorned the south transept,--painting a colossal "Virgin and Child
between four Angels," above the altar of the Conception, and a large
figure of St Francis. In the upper church, north transept, he has the
"Saviour Enthroned and some Angels," and, on the central ceiling of the
transept, the "Four Evangelists with Angels." Many other works in both
the lower and the upper church have been ascribed to Cimabue, but with
very scanty evidence; even the above-named can be assigned to him only
as matter of probability. Numerous others which he indisputably did
paint have perished,--for instance, a series (earlier in date than the
Rucellai picture) in the Carmine church at Padua, which were destroyed
by a fire.

From Assisi Cimabue returned to Florence. In the closing years of his
life he was appointed capomaestro of the mosaics of the cathedral of
Pisa, and was afterwards, hardly a year before his death, joined with
Arnolfo di Cambio as architect for the cathedral of Florence. In Pisa he
executed a Majesty in the apse,--"Christ in glory be