Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/115

Rh beside the high altar. It is held in great veneration for the sake of the master; and caused the Pisans to entrust him with the decoration of their Campo Santo. The edifice was scarcely completed, from the design of Giovanni Pisano, as we have said above, when Giotto was invited to paint a portion of the internal wails. This magnificent fabric, being encrusted externally with rich marbles and sculptures, executed at immense cost, the roof covered with lead, and the interior filled with antique monuments and sepulchral urns of Pagan times, brought to Pisa from all parts of the world, it was determined that the inner walls should be adorned with the noblest paintings. To that end Giotto repaired to Pisa, and on one of the walls of the Campo Santo he painted the history of Job, in six large frescoes; but, as he judiciously reflected, that the marble of that part of the building where he went to work, being turned towards the sea, and exposed to the southeast winds, was always humid, and gave out a certain saline moisture, as do nearly all the bricks of Pisa, which fades and corrodes the colours and pictures, so he caused a coating or intonaco to be made for every part whereon he proposed to paint in fresco, that his work might be preserved as long as possible, this intonaco was composed of lime, chalk, and powdered bricks, all so well mingled together, that the paintings which he afterwards executed on the surface thus prepared, remain in tolerable preservation to this day. Nay, they might have been in much better condition, if the neglect of those who ought to have taken care of them had not suffered them to sustain injury from the damp: but this not having been guarded against, as it might easily have been, has caused some of the paintings to be spoiled in certain places; the flesh tints having become blackened, and the plaster fallen off. It is, besides, the nature of chalk, when mingled with lime, to become corroded and peel off with time,