LITMIR.BIZ

      LIFE OF PIETRO CAVALLINI,

      PAINTER OF ROME

       Table of Contents

      For many centuries Rome had been deprived not only of fine letters and of the glory of arms but also of all the sciences and fine arts, when, by the will of God, there was born therein Pietro Cavallini, in those times when Giotto, having, it may be said, restored painting to life, was holding the sovereignty among the painters in Italy. He, then, having been a disciple of Giotto and having worked with Giotto himself on the Navicella in mosaic in S. Pietro, was the first who, after him, gave light to that art, and he began to show that he had been no unworthy disciple of so great a master when he painted, over the door of the sacristy of the Araceli, some scenes that are to-day eaten away by time, and very many works coloured in fresco throughout the whole Church of S. Maria di Trastevere. Afterwards, working in mosaic on the principal chapel and on the façade of the church, he showed in the beginning of such a work, without the help of Giotto, that he was no less able in the execution and bringing to completion of mosaics than he was in painting. Making many scenes in fresco, also, in the Church of S. Grisogono, he strove to make himself known both as the best disciple of Giotto and as a good craftsman. In like manner, also in Trastevere, he painted almost the whole Church of S. Cecilia with his own hand, and many works in the Church of S. Francesco appresso Ripa. He then made the façade of mosaic in S. Paolo without Rome, and many stories of the Old Testament for the central nave. And painting some works in fresco in the Chapter-house of the first cloister, he put therein so great diligence that he gained thereby from men of judgment the name of being a most excellent master, and was therefore so much favoured by the prelates that they commissioned him to do the inner wall of S. Pietro, between the windows. Between these he made the four Evangelists, wrought very well in fresco, of extraordinary size in comparison with the figures that at that time were customary, with a S. Peter and a S. Paul, and a good number of figures in a ship, wherein, the Greek manner pleasing him much, he blended it ever with that of Giotto; and since he delighted to give relief to his figures, it is recognized that he used thereunto the greatest efforts that can be imagined by man. But the best work that he made in that city was in the said Church of Araceli on the Campidoglio, where he painted in fresco, on the vaulting of the principal apse, the Madonna with the Child in her arms, surrounded by a circle of sunlight, and beneath is the Emperor Octavian, to whom the Tiburtine Sibyl is showing Jesus Christ, and he is adoring Him; and the figures in this work, as it has been said in other places, have been much better preserved than the others, because those that are on the vaulting are less injured by dust than those that are made on the walls.

      After these works Pietro went to Tuscany, in order to see the works of the other disciples of his master Giotto and those of Giotto himself; and with this occasion he painted many figures in S. Marco in Florence, which are not seen to-day, the church having been whitewashed, except the Annunciation, which stands covered beside the principal door of the church. In S. Basilio, also, in the Canto alla Macine, he made another Annunciation in fresco on a wall, so like to that which he had made before in S. Marco, and to another one that is in Florence, that some believe, and not without probability, that they are all by the hand of this Pietro; and in truth they could not be more like, one to another, than they are. Among the figures that he made in the said S. Marco in Florence was the portrait of Pope Urban V from the life, with the heads of S. Peter and S. Paul; from which portrait Fra Giovanni da Fiesole copied that one which is in a panel in S. Domenico, also of Fiesole; and that was no small good-fortune, seeing that the portrait which was in S. Marco and many other figures that were about the church in fresco were covered with whitewash, as it has been said, when that convent was taken from the monks who occupied it before and given to the Preaching Friars, the whole being whitewashed with little attention and consideration.