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with which the old labourer Bondone entrusted his infant son to a stranger, is related by Ghiberti and Vasari. 1 Giotto born in 1276, was ten years of age, 2 when Cimabue, taking him away to Florence, initiated him to the first rules of art. Any attempt to trace the progress of Giotto under the guidance of his early teacher would be perfectly useless, inasmuch as the first fruits of his industry have perished; 3 but that he laboured when still young at As sisi, is evident to those who can study the scenes of the life of S. Francis in the aisle of the Upper church. That he had entered upon manhood when he painted the alle gorical ceilings of the Lower church is equally evident. It is therefore probable that he executed the latter when, according to Vasari, he was called to Assisi by Fra’ Gio vanni di Muro, 4 elected fourth general of the order of S. Francis in the year 1296. 5 — 1 Ghiberti (2 d Commentary in Vas.uh.sup. p.p. XVII—XVill.) explains that Bondone gave up his son because he was “pove- rissimo”. * Vas. Vol. I. p. 310. Ghiberti (ub. svip.) says, Giotto was then “di piccola eta”. — There is a strange coincidence of name between Giotto di Bondone the painter, and Giotto di Buondone, who, between 1301 and 1321, oc cupied important posts in the re public of Sienna. (Rumohr. ub. sup. Vol. II. p. 41.) But there can be no error as to the name of the painter’s father, as in a document of 1312 the former is called Bondonis. See not. to Vas. Vol. I. p. 329. 3 .Paintings in the Badia of Flo rence. Vas. Vol. I. p. 311, 4 Vas. Vol. I. p. 315. 5 Wadding, Anna 1. or d. Min. Vol. V. p. 348. Anno 1296. Va sari (Vol. I. p. 315) pretends that, on his way to Assisi, Giotto, pass ing through Arezzo, painted in the Duomo, without the city, a chapel in which he represented the stoning of Stephen, and, in the chapel of the Pieve d’Arezzo de dicated to S. Francis — a portrait of that saint and of S. Dominick, on a column. As the Duomo was razed in 1561, the “stoning of S. Stephen” perished with it, but the figures of S. Francis and S. Dominick still exist in the Pieve : the former standing with a book, the latter with a lily in his hand. These figures, on tiptoe, hardly outlined, with some research in the detail of form, but of a paltry shape, ill drawn as regards the extremities, and feeble in the dra peries , is evidently not by Giotto but may possibly be by Jacopo di Casentino. A crucifix in the Badia di S. Fiore at Arezzo is likewise assigned to Giotto (see annot. to Vasari p. 324.), Va sari having stated that he painted one there; but that which now exists, so far from being in the style of Giotto, is in the man ner of a Siennese painter, possibly Segna, whose works may be men tioned later. Further, as to a figure of S. Martin painted for Piero Saccone on a pilaster of