ormed of him and showed greater powers of invention, especially in the
attitude of the Virgin, whom he depicted with the child in her arms and
numerous angels around her, on a gold ground. This is the picture now in
the Accademia in Florence. The frescoes next described are no longer in
existence:--

"Cimabue next painted in fresco at the hospital of the Porcellana at the
corner of the Via Nuova which leads into the Borgo Ogni Santi. On the
front of this building, which has the principal door in the centre, he
painted the Virgin receiving the Annunciation from the angel, on one
side, and Christ with Cleophas and Luke on the other, all the figures
the size of life. In this work he departed more decidedly from the dry
and formal manner of his instructors, giving more life and movement to
the draperies, vestments and other accessories, and rendering all more
flexible and natural than was common to the manner of those Greeks whose
work were full of hard lines and sharp angles as well in mosaic as in
painting. And this rude unskilful manner the Greeks had acquired not so
much from study or settled purpose as from having servilely followed
certain fixed rules and habits transmitted through a long series of
years by one painter to another, while none ever thought of the
amelioration of his design, the embellishment of his colouring, or the
improvement of his invention."

After describing Cimabue's activities at Pisa and Assisi with equal
circumstance, Vasari passes to the famous _Rucellai Madonna_, now
supposed to be by the hand of Duccio of Siena. However doubtful the
story may appear in the light of modern criticism, historical or
artistic, it certainly forms part of the history of painting--for its
spirit if not for its accuracy--and as such it can never be too often
quoted:--

"He afterwards painted the picture of the Virgin for the Church of
Santa Maria Novella, where it is suspended on high between the chapel of
the Rucellai family and that of the Bardi. This picture is of larger
size than any figure that had been painted down to those times, and the
angels surrounding it make it evident that although Cimabue still
retained the Greek manner, he was nevertheless gradually approaching the
mode of outline and general method of modern times. Thus it happened
that this work was an object of so much admiration to the people of that
day--they having never seen anything better--that it was carried in
solemn procession, with t