s he told, but after all he lived much nearer than we do to the
times he wrote about, and it is safer to believe what he tells us than
what modern students surmise, except when they are able to cite other
old authorities to which Vasari did not have access.

The endless flood of misfortunes which overwhelmed unhappy Italy not
only ruined everything worthy of the name of a building, but completely
extinguished the race of artists, a far more serious matter. Then,
as it pleased God, there was born in the year 1240, in the city of
Florence, Giovanni, surnamed Cimabue, to shed the first light on the
art of painting. Instead of paying attention to his lessons, Cimabue
spent the whole day drawing men, horses, houses, and various other
fancies on his books and odd sheets, like one who felt himself compelled
to do so by nature. Fortune proved favourable to his natural
inclination, for some Greek artists were summoned to Florence by the
government of the city for no other purpose than the revival of painting
in their midst, since the art was not so much debased as altogether
lost. In this way Cimabue made a beginning in the art which attracted
him, for he often played the truant and spent the whole day in watching
the masters work. Thus it came about that his father and the artists
considered him so fitted to be a painter that if he devoted himself
to the profession he might look for honourable success in it, and to
his great satisfaction his father procured him employment with the
painters. Thus by dint of continual practice and with the assistance
of his natural talent he far surpassed the manner of his teachers.
For they had never cared to make any progress and had executed their
works, not in the good manner of ancient Greece, but in the rude modern
style of that time. Cimabue drew from nature to the best of his powers,
although it was a novelty to do so in those days, and he made the
draperies, garments, and other things somewhat more life-like, natural,
and soft than the Greeks had done, who had taught one another a rough,
awkward, and commonplace style for a great number of years, not by
means of study but as a matter of custom, without ever dreaming of
improving their designs by beauty of colouring or by any invention
of worth.

If you were to see a picture by Cimabue (there is one in the National
Gallery which resembles his work so closely that it is sometimes said
to be his), you would think less highly than Vasari of