Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/25

1302] Florence, painters belonged to the Guild of doctors and apothecaries, which was one of the seven Major Arts, or higher class of trades, and each artist was required to matriculate in this body before he could practise as an independent master. This close connection between painting and medicine dates back to very early days, and receives further illustration from the fact that St. Luke was the patron of both doctors and artists. During the last ten years of the thirteenth century more than twenty masters, who all had workshops and apprentices, are mentioned as living in Florence, and a street in the heart of the city bore the name of the Via dei Pittori. Among all these, the only painter who attained a high degree of reputation was Giovanni Cenni, surnamed Cimabue, after some member of a noble Florentine family by whom he was adopted, and generally known by this name. Both Dante and Vasari speak of him as the foremost artist of his age, and Vasari relates how this man was born, by the will of God, in the year 1240, to give the first light to the art of painting. In the account of Cimabue's life which follows, the historian tells us that as a boy he was sent to study letters in the Dominican convent of Santa Maria Novella, where instead of learning grammar he spent his time in watching the Greek painters at work in the neighbouring church. Since Santa Maria Novella was only built when Cimabue was forty years of age, this statement can hardly be correct; but Vasari is probably right in saying that the Florentine master owed his training to artists of Byzantine origin. The remainder of Vasari's biography is of the same legendary nature. After enumerating Cimabue's