Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/116

102 when it inevitably ruins the colours ; although at first it seems to bind and secure them. In these stories, beside the portrait of Messer Farinata degli Uberti, there are many admirable figures, more particularly those of certain villagers, who bring the grievous news of his losses to Job : no faces could be more eloquently demonstrative of the grief they feel for the lost cattle and other calamities, than are these. There is likewise extraordinary grace in the figure of a servant, who, with a fan of branches in his hand, stands near the suffering Job, now abandoned by all else. Every part of his figure is beautiful ; but most of all to be admired is his attitude—as, driving the flies from his leprous and ill-odoured master with one hand, he guards himself from the pungent scents, from which he obviously shrinks, with the other. The remaining figures of these paintings, and the heads, those of the men as well as the women, are exceedingly beautiful ; the draperies also are painted with infinite grace ; nor is it at all surprising that this work acquired so much fame for its author as to induce Pope Benedict IX to send one of his courtiers from Treviso to Tuscany for the purpose of ascertaining what kind of man Giotto might be, and what were his works : that pontiff then proposing to have certain paintings executed in the. The messenger, when on his way to visit Giotto, and to inquire what other good masters there were in Florence, spoke first with many artists in Siena, —then, having received designs from them, he proceeded to Florence, and repaired one morning to the workshop where Giotto was occupied with his labours. He declared the purpose of the pope, and the manner in which that pontiff desired to avail himself of his assistance, and finally, requested to have a drawing, that he might send it to his holiness. Giotto, who was very courteous, took a sheet of paper, and a pencil dipped in a red colour ; then, resting his elbow on his side, to form a sort of compass, with one turn of the hand he drew