dge of history extends, the most cruel,
the most false, and the most foolish insult ever offered by one great
man to another,--does you at least good service, in showing how
trenchant the separation is between the two orders of artists,[H]--how
exclusively we may follow out the history of all the 'goffi nell' arte,'
and write our Florentine Dunciad, and Laus Stultitiae, in peace; and
never trench upon the thoughts or ways of these proud ones, who showed
their fathers' nakedness, and snatched their masters' fame.

47. The Florentine dunces in art are a multitude; but I only want you to
know something about twenty of them.

Twenty!--you think that a grievous number? It may, perhaps, appease
you a little to be told that when you really have learned a very little,
accurately, about these twenty dunces, there are only five more men
among the artists of Christendom whose works I shall ask you to examine
while you are under my care. That makes twenty-five altogether,--an
exorbitant demand on your attention, you still think? And yet, but a
little while ago, you were all agog to get me to go and look at Mrs. A's
sketches, and tell you what was to be thought about _them_; and I've had
the greatest difficulty to keep Mrs. B's photographs from being shown
side by side with the Raphael drawings in the University galleries. And
you will waste any quantity of time in looking at Mrs. A's sketches or
Mrs. B's photographs; and yet you look grave, because, out of nineteen
centuries of European art-labor and thought, I ask you to learn
something seriously about the works of five-and-twenty men!

48. It is hard upon you, doubtless, considering the quantity of time you
must nowadays spend in trying which can hit balls farthest. So I will
put the task into the simplest form I can.

1200 1300 1400
| 1250 | 1350 |
+ + + + +
Niccola Pisano |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | | | | | | | |
Arnolfo |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | | | | |
Cimabue |-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | | | | | |
Giovanni Pisano |-|-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | | | |
Andrea Pisano |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | |
Giotto |-|-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | |
Orcagna |-|-|-|-|-|-|-| | |

1400 1500