pilasters on the right of the choir."

Unfortunately the very first example cited pulls us up short alongside
the official catalogue of the Uffizi Gallery (where the picture was
placed in 1841), in which it is catalogued (No. 20) as "Unknown ...
Vasari erroneously attributes it to Cimabue."

Tiresome as it may seem to be thus distracted, at the very outset, by
the question of authenticity, it is nevertheless desirable to start with
a clear understanding that in surveying in a general way the history and
development of painting, it will be quite hopeless to wait for the final
word on the supposed authorship of every picture mentioned. In this
instance, as it happens, there is no reason to question the modern
catalogue, though that is by no means the same thing as denying that
Cimabue painted the picture which existed in the church of S. Cecilia in
Vasari's time. Is it more likely, it may be asked, that Vasari, who is
accused of unduly glorifying Cimabue, would attribute to him a work not
worthy of his fame, or that during the three centuries since Vasari
wrote a substitution was effected? The other picture, the _Madonna and
Child Enthroned_, which found its way into our National Gallery in 1857,
is still officially catalogued as the work of Cimabue, and it is to be
hoped that this precious relic, together with the Madonnas in the
Louvre, the Florence Academy, and in the lower church at Assisi, may be
long spared to us by the authority of the critics as "genuine
productions" of the beloved master.

On the general question, however, let me reassure the reader by stating
that so far as possible I have avoided the mention of any pictures, in
the following pages, about which there is any grave doubt, save in a few
cases where tradition is so firmly established that it seems heartless
to disturb it until final judgment is entered--of which the following
examples of Cimabue's reputed work may be taken as types. The latest
criticism seeks to deprive him of every single existing picture he is
believed to have painted; those mentioned by Vasari which have perished
may be considered equally unauthentic, but, as before mentioned, his
account of them gives us as well as anything else the story of the
beginnings of the art.

Having afterwards undertaken, Vasari continues, to paint a large picture
in the Abbey of the Santa Trinita in Florence for the monks of
Vallombrosa, he made great efforts to justify the high opinion already
f