[124] See Capponi, vol. i. pp. 59, 78, for a description of the gay and courteous living of the Florentines upon the end of the thirteenth century.

[125] See the Descrizione della Peste di Firenze.

[126] I wish I could here transcribe the most beautiful passage from Ruskin’s Giotto and his Works in Padua, pp. 11, 12, describing the contrast between the landscape of Valdarno and the landscape of the hills of the Mugello district.  I can only refer readers to the book, printed for the Arundel Society, 1854.

[127] See Trucchi, Poesie Italiane Inedite, vol. ii. p. 8.

[128] See above, Chapter III, Relation of Sculpture to Painting.

[129] The wonderful beauty of Orcagna’s faces, profile after profile laid together like lilies in a garden border, can only be discovered after long study.  It has been my good fortune to examine, through the kindness of Mrs. Higford Burr, of Aldermaston, a large series of tracings, taken chiefly by the Right Hon. A. H. Layard, from the frescoes of Giottesque and other early masters, which, by the selection of simple form in outline, demonstrate not only the grand composition of these religious paintings, but also the incomparable loveliness of their types.  How great the Trecentisti were as draughtsmen, how imaginative was the beauty of their conception, can be best appreciated by thus artificially separating their design from their colouring.  The semblance of archaism disappears, and leaves a vision of pure beauty, delicate and spiritual.  The collection to which I have alluded was made some years ago, when access to the wall-paintings of Italy for the purpose of tracing was still possible.  It includes nearly the whole of Lorenzetti’s work in the Sala della Pace, much of Giotto, the Gozzoli frescoes at S. Gemignano, frescoes of the Veronese masters and of the Paduan Baptistery, a great deal of Piero della Francesca, Mantegna, Luini, Gaudenzio Ferrari, Pinturicchio, Masolino, &c.  The earliest masters of Arezzo, Pisa, Siena, Urbino are copiously illustrated, while few burghs or hamlets of the Tuscan and Umbrian districts have been left unvisited.

[130] See Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. i. pp. 445-451, for a discussion of the question.  They incline to the authorship of Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti.  But the last Florentine edition of Vasari renders this opinion doubtful.

[131]
    Ed una donna involta in veste negra,
    Con un furor qual io non so se mai
    Al tempo de’ giganti fosse a Flegra.
        Trionfo della Morte, cap. i. 31.

[132] On a scroll above these wretches is written this legend:—­

    Dacche prosperitade ci ha lasciati,
    O morte, medicina d’ogni pena,
    Deh vieni a darne omai l’ultima cena.

[133] This might be used as an argument against the Lorenzetti hypothesis; for their work at Siena is eminently beautiful.