Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/64

42 however, described by Vasari, is still in existence: the altar-piece of St. Francis receiving the Stigmata on the rocky heights of La Vernia, together with the three subjects of the predella—Pope Innocent's Dream of Francis supporting the falling pillars of the Church, the Confirmation of the Rule, and Francis preaching to the swallows. This interesting picture was originally painted for a church in Pisa, and now hangs in the Louvre. It bears the inscription, Opus Jocti Fiorentini, a signature which confirms Boccaccio's statement that Giotto always refused to bear the name of Magister. It is worthy of notice that in legal documents regarding the purchase of lands at Vespignano, which are still in existence, the master always employs the signature of Giottus pictor, while the Baroncelli altar-piece and other spurious works bear the forged inscription—Opus Magistri Jocti.

In 1330, Giotto was invited to Naples by King Robert, whose son Charles, Duke of Calabria, held the post of Captain of the people of Florence during two years, and who had employed Giotto to paint his portrait. This monarch, the friend and patron of Boccaccio and Petrarch, received Giotto with the highest honour, and issued a decree, in the following January, granting this chosen and faithful servant all the privileges enjoyed by members of the royal household. Ghiberti tells us that Giotto painted the hall of King Robert's palace, and Petrarch alludes in one of his epistles to the frescoes with which he adorned the royal Chapel of the Castello dell' Uovo, "Do not fail," he writes, "to visit the royal Chapel where my contemporary, Giotto, the greatest painter of his age, has left such splendid monuments of his