Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/66

44 and beauty, should surpass all that the Greeks and Romans had accomplished in the days of their greatest pride. "For this purpose," the decree runs, "we have chosen Giotto di Bondone, painter, our great and dear master, since neither in the city nor in the whole world is there any other to be found as well fitted for this and similar tasks." Giotto lost no time in preparing designs for the beautiful Campanile which bears his name, and on the 8th of July the foundations of the new Tower were laid with great solemnity. Villani describes the imposing processions that were held, and the immense multitudes which attended the ceremony, and adds that the Superintendent of Works was Maestro Giotto, "our own citizen, the most sovereign master of painting in his time, and the one who drew figures, and represented action in the most life-like manner." Giotto received a salary of 100 golden florins from the State "for his excellence and goodness," and was strictly enjoined not to leave Florence again without the permission of the Signory. The contemporary chronicler Pucci describes the ceremony in verse, and adds that Giotto not only designed the Campanile, but also executed the first tier of bas-reliefs, a statement confirmed by Ghiberti, who says that Giotto, being a skilled sculptor, himself designed and carved the first story of reliefs on his own Tower. There seems to be little doubt that these noble sculptures, forming as they do a grand poem of the life of humanity and the progress of civilization, were originally designed by Giotto, but probably executed by his assistant, Andrea Pisano, to whom the building of the Campanile was entrusted after the