Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/136

122 place ; and for the rest I refer my reader to Franco and other writers.

The memory of Giotto is not only preserved in his own works, but is also consecrated in the writings of the authors of those times, he being the master by whom the true art of painting was recovered, after it had been lost during many years preceding his time : wherefore, by a public decree, and by command of the elder Lorenzo de’ Medici, of glorious memory, who bore him a particular affection, and greatly admired the talent of this distinguished man, his bust was placed in Santa Maria del Fiore, being sculptured in marble by, an excellent sculptor, and the following verses, by that divine poet, , were engraved thereon, to the end, that all who should distinguish themselves in any profession might have hope of receiving such memorials at the hands of others, his successors, as Giotto deserved and received from the hands of Lorenzo :— “Ille ego sum, per quem pictura extinta revixit,
 * Cui quam recta manus, tam fuit et facilis

Naturae deerat nostrae quod defuit arti :
 * Plus licuit nulli pingere, nec melius

Miraris turrim egregiam sacro aere sonantem?
 * Haec quoque de modulo crevit ad astra meo,

Denique sum Jottus, quid opus fuit ilia referre?
 * Hoc nomen longi carminis instar erit.”

And that those who shall come after, may better know the excellence of this great man, and may judge him from drawings by his own hand, there are some that are wonderfully beautiful preserved in my book above-mentioned, and which I have collected with great diligence, as well as with much labour and expense.