Let us now enter the first room of the collection proper and begin at the very beginning of Tuscan art, for this collection is historical and not fortuitous like that of the Pitti.  The student may here trace the progress of Tuscan painting from the level to the highest peaks and downwards again.  The Accademia was established with this purpose by that enlightened prince, Peter Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, in 1784.  Other pictures not wholly within his scheme have been added since, together with the Michelangelo statues and casts; but they do not impair the original idea.  For the serious student the first room is of far the most importance, for there he may begin with Cimabue (? 1240-? 1302), and Giotto (1267-? 1337), and pass steadily to Luca Signorelli (? 1450-1523).  For the most part the pictures in this room appeal to the inquirer rather than the sightseer; but there is not one that is without interest, while three works of extraordinary charm have thoughtfully been enisled, on screens, for special attention—­a Fra Angelico, a Fabriano, and a Ghirlandaio.  Before reaching these, let us look at the walls.

The first large picture, on the left, the Cimabue, marks the transition from Byzantine art to Italian art.  Giovanni Cimabue, who was to be the forerunner of the new art, was born about 1240.  At that time there was plenty of painting in Italy, but it was Greek, the work of artists at Constantinople (Byzantium), the centre of Christianity in the eastern half of the Roman Empire and the fount of ecclesiastical energy, and it was crude workmanship, existing purely as an accessory of worship.  Cimabue, of whom, I may say, almost nothing definite is known, and upon whom the delightful but casual old Vasari is the earliest authority, as Dante was his first eulogist, carried on the Byzantine tradition, but breathed a little life into it.  In his picture here we see him feeling his way from the unemotional painted symbols of the Faith to humanity itself.  One can understand this large panel being carried (as we know the similar one at S. Maria Novella was) in procession and worshipped, but it is nearer to the icon of the Russian peasant of today than to a Raphael.  The Madonna is above life; the Child is a little man.  This was painted, say, in 1280, as an altar-piece for the Badia of S. Trinita at Florence.

Next came Giotto, Cimabue’s pupil, born about 1267, whom we have met already as an architect, philosopher, and innovator; and in the second picture in this room, from Giotto’s brush, we see life really awakening.  The Madonna is vivifying; the Child is nearer childhood; we can believe that here are veins with blood in them.  Moreover, whereas Cimabue’s angels brought masonry, these bring flowers.  It is crude, no doubt, but it is enough; the new art, which was to counterfeit and even extend nature, has really begun; the mystery and glory of painting are assured and the door opened for Botticelli.