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Chap. VI. CIMABUE. 209 deemer a melancholy rather than a grim expression, and a certain majestic air of repose in the attitude and features. The Christ’s head, was still of that bullet shape which had never been lost in Italy, since it was first conceived by an artist in the Roman catacombs. 1 The brow was still heavily projected and wrinkled, but the eyes had lost the gaze of the degenerate period; nor were the features without regularity and proportion; and thus Ci- mabue, who had reformed in a certain measure the type of the Virgin, raised that of the Saviour from the depth of degeneracy into which it had fallen in the hands of his predecessors. To the bending figure of the Evan gelist he also gave a certain languid reverence peculiarly his own. Finally, as a mosaist, he proved himself superior to the artists of the baptistery of Florence and even to Gaddo Gaddi, whose works at S. Maria Maggiore in Rome are likewise an example of the impulse given to Florentine art. 2 Of Cimabue’s presence at S. Francesco of Assisi there is not the slightest reason to doubt. But as the study of his works there involves the whole question of the rise of Giotto, it will be necessary to devote to this sanctuary a special chapter. 1 See the Christ of the Pontian catacomb inscribed “De donis” &c. 2 Ciampi ub. sup. pretends p. 91, that the mosaic of the Duomo was left unfinished; because he finds by an inscription, that it was com pleted, “having been left un finished ”, by one Vicinus a painter in 1321. Vasari affirms that Ci- mabue died in 1300. Vol. I. p. 226. This is evidently an error, as he still appears in the records of Pisa in 1301—2. The Anonimo edited by Morelli. “Notizia d’opere &c. Bass 0 1800, p. 17.” notices a head of S. John in fresco by Cimabue framed in wood. Having been saved from fire in the Carmine of Padua, it was preserved in the 1 st half of the 16 th century in the house of M. Alessandro Capello in Borgo Zucco at Padua.