Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/54

34 walls of Florence was greatly increased by these works. Before he left Padua he was employed to decorate the palace of Francesco di Carrara, and to paint scenes from the life of St. Francis and St. Anthony in the Chapter-house of the newly-built church of "Il Santo," which bade fair to rival S. Francesco of Assisi in splendour and popularity. From Padua, Vasari tells us, the Florentine master went on to the neighbouring city of Verona, where he painted the portrait of Dante's noble friend and protector, Can Grande della Scala, as well as other works in the Franciscan church, and then proceeded to Ferrara and Ravenna at the invitation of the Este and Polenta princes. His visit to the court of the Malatesta at Rimini must also have been paid about this time, since the Ferrarese chronicler Riccobaldi, who died in 1313, speaks of the works painted "by that admirable Florentine master, Giotto, in the churches of the Brothers Minor at Assisi, Rimini and Padua." All of these works in the cities of North Italy have perished, and it is to Florence that we must turn for the third and last remaining cycle of his frescoes. The great Franciscan church of Santa Croce had been raised from Arnolfo's designs in the last years of the thirteenth century, and the proudest Florentine families hastened to build chapels at their own expense, as a mark of their devotion to the popular Saint. Four of these chapels were decorated with frescoes by Giotto's hand, but were all whitewashed in 1714, when Santa Croce underwent a thorough restoration. The frescoes of the lives of the Apostles, and the story of the Virgin, which he painted in the Giugni and Spinelli