Page:Cyclopedia of painters and paintings - Volume I.djvu/340

 Madonna with or without saints, to whom he gives an air of calm contentment. Among his best works are: Madonna and Saints (1492), Conegliano Duomo; Madonna with Saints, in the Louvre; Baptism of Christ, S. Giovanni, Bragora (1494); Incredulity of St. Thomas, Madonna with Saints, Venice Academy; Madonna with Saints (2), Parma Gallery; St. Mark curing Anianus, Berlin Museum; St. Peter Martyr, Brera, Milan. Other examples in the galleries of Modena, Munich, etc.—C. & C., N. Italy, i. 232; Ch. Blanc, Ecole vénitienne; Vasari, ed. Mil., iii. 645, 663; Burckhardt, 82, 500; Lübke, Gesch. ital. Mal., i. 545.

CIMABUE, GIOVANNI, born in Florence in 1240, died there about 1302. Florentine school; of a noble Florentine family, the Cimabui; pupil, according to Vasari, of certain Greek painters, called to Florence by the government to revive painting, who worked in the Cappella de' Gondi of S. M. Novella, where Cimabue attended school. But Florence had painters and miniaturists, such as Rustici (1166), Marchisello (1191), Fidanza (1224), and Bartolommeo (1236), long before Cimabue's birth, and a street called the Via de' Pittori, which proves that the calling of Greek painters to restore art was as unnecessary as it is incredible. Also the chapel in S. M. Novella, where they are said to have painted, is contemporary with the church which was erected in 1279, when Cimabue was thirty-nine years old. Cimabue's fame is due first to his superior gifts, which enabled him to begin to cast off the fetters of Byzantinism; second, to the fact that he was the master of Giotto; and third, because his name is mentioned by Dante. His most certain work is his famous Madonna de' Rucellai in the Capella Rucellai, S. M. Novella, which Charles of Anjou is said to have been taken to see (1267), and for which the quarter of the city where it was painted is said by Vasari to have been named the Borgo Allegri, a name given before 1301, but whether in honour of the picture or not is uncertain. The personage in a white and gold costume painted by Simone di Martino in the Cappella dei Spagnuoli, whose head we have engraved, though designated by Vasari as Cimabue, is probably a French cavalier, perhaps the so-called Duke of Athens, Walter de Brienne, whilom tyrant of Florence. Among the supposed works of Cimabue are: Madonna with angels, Florence Academy; Crucifix and a Madonna, sacristy, S. Croce; Madonna with Angels, National Gallery, London; Madonna with Angels, Louvre; mosaic, Saviour enthroned between the Virgin and St. John, properly called the Majesty, Duomo, Pisa; frescos, S. Francesco, Assisi, on three walls, left transept, and in choir, Upper Church; Evangelists, central ceiling of transept; Four Doctors of the Church, ceiling near portal, do.; colossal Madonna with Angels, west side over altar of Crucifixion, south transept wall, Lower Church.—Vasari, ed. Mil., i. 247; C. & C., Italy, i. 201; Seguier, 43; Burckhardt, 488, 494; Baldinucci, i. 21; Lübke, Gesch. ital. Mal., i. 90.

CIMABUE'S MADONNA, PROCESSION OF, Sir Frederick Leighton, Buckingham Palace, London. Cimabue's famous picture of the Madonna de' Rucellai carried in procession through the streets of Florence to S.