The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (13 inch ebook reader .txt) 📕

the courtiers as were well versed in the subject, perceived how far Giotto surpassed all the other painters of his time. This incident, becoming known, gave rise to the proverb, still used in relation to people of dull wits⁠—Tu sei piu tondo che l’O di Giotto; the significance of which consists in the double meaning of the word ‘tondo,’ which is used in the Tuscan for slowness of intellect and heaviness of comprehension, as well as for an exact circle. The proverb has besides an interest from the circumstance which gave it birth.⁠ ⁠…

“It is said that Giotto, when he was still a boy, and studying with Cimabue, once painted a fly on the nose of a figure on which Cimabue himself was employed, and this so naturally, that, when the master returned to continue his work, he believed it to be real, and lifted his hand more than once to drive it away before he should go on with the painting.”

Boccaccio, Decameron, VI 5, tells this tale of Giotto:⁠—

“As it often happens that fortune hides under the meanest trades in life the greatest virtues, which has been proved by Pampinea; so are the greatest geniuses found frequently lodged by Nature in the most deformed and misshapen bodies, which was verified in two of our own citizens, as I am now going to relate. For the one, who was called Forese da Rabatta, being a little deformed mortal, with a flat Dutch face, worse than any of the family of the Baronci, yet was he esteemed by most men a repository of the civil law. And the other, whose name was Giotto, had such a prodigious fancy, that there was nothing in Nature, the parent of all things, but he could imitate it with his pencil so well, and draw it so like, as to deceive our very senses, imagining that to be the very thing itself which was only his painting: therefore, having brought that art again to light, which had lain buried for many ages under the errors of such as aimed more to captivate the eyes of the ignorant, than to please the understandings of those who were really judges, he may be deservedly called one of the lights and glories of our city, and the rather as being master of his art, notwithstanding his modesty would never suffer himself to be so esteemed; which honor, though rejected by him, displayed itself in hirn with the greater lustre, as it was so eagerly usurped by others less knowing than himself, and by many also who had all their knowledge from him. But though his excellence in his profession was so wonderful, yet as to his person and aspect he had no way the advantage of Signor Forese. To come then to my story. These two worthies had each his country-seat at Mugello, and Forese being gone thither in the vacation time, and riding upon an unsightly steed, chanced to meet there with Giotto, who was no better equipped than himself, when they returned together to Florence. Travelling slowly along, as they were able to go no faster, they were overtaken by a great shower of rain, and forced to take shelter in a poor man’s house, who was well known to them both; and, as there was no appearance of the weather’s clearing up, and each being desirous of getting home that night, they borrowed two old, rusty cloaks, and two rusty hats, and they proceeded on their journey. After they had gotten a good part of their way, thoroughly wet, and covered with dirt and mire, which their two shuffling steeds had thrown upon them, and which by no means improved their looks, it began to clear up at last, and they, who had hitherto said but little to each other, now turned to discourse together; whilst Forese, riding along and listening to Giotto, who was excellent at telling a story, began at last to view him attentively from head to foot, and, seeing him in that wretched, dirty pickle, without having any regard to himself he fell a laughing, and said, ‘Do you suppose, Giotto, if a stranger were to meet with you now, who had never seen you before, that he would imagine you to be the best painter in the world, as you really are?’ Giotto readily replied, ‘Yes, sir, I believe he might think so, if, looking at you at the same time, he would ever conclude that you had learned your A. BC’ At this Forese was sensible of his mistake, finding himself well paid in his own coin.”

Another story of Giotto may be found in Sacchetti, Nov. 75. ↩

Probably Dante’s friend, Guido Cavalcanti, Note 140; and Guido Guinicelli, Note 1046, whom he calls

“The father
Of me and of my betters, who had ever
Practised the sweet and gracious rhymes of love.”

↩

Some commentators suppose that Dante here refers to himself. He more probably is speaking only in general terms, without particular reference to any one. ↩

Ben Jonson, “Ode on the Death of Sir H. Morison”:⁠—

“It Is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make men better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear;
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night;
It was the plant and flower of light.”

↩

The babble of childhood; pappo for pane, bread, and dindi for danari, money.

Halliwell, Dic. of Arch. and Prov. Words:⁠—

“Dinders, small coins of the Lower Empire, found at Wroxeter.”

↩

The revolution of the fixed stars, according to the Ptolemaic theory, which was also Dante’s, was thirtysix thousand years. ↩

“Who goes so slowly,” interprets the Ottimo. ↩

At the battle of Monte Aperto. See Note