Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/65

pencil and genius." But all these works have been destroyed, and another series of frescoes on the Revelation of St. John, painted, Vasari tells us, col pensiero di Dante, which he executed in the newly-built Franciscan church of Santa Chiara, were whitewashed in the last century, by order of a Spanish governor, who complained that they made the church too dark! King Robert appreciated the painter's company as much as his talent, and enjoyed the frankness of his speech and his ready jest. "Well, Giotto," he said, as he watched the artist at work one summer day, "if I were you, I would leave off painting while the weather is so hot." "So would I, were I King Robert," was Giotto's prompt reply. Another time the King asked him to introduce a symbol of his kingdom in a hall containing portraits of illustrious men, upon which Giotto without a word, painted a donkey wearing a saddle, embroidered with the royal crown and sceptre, pawing and sniffing at another saddle lying on the ground, bearing the same device. "Such are your subjects," explained the artist, with a sly allusion to the fickle temper of the Neapolitans. "Every day they seek a new master." In 1333, Giotto was still in Naples, and King Robert, it is said, promised to make him the first man in the realm, if he would remain at his court; but early in the following year he was summoned back to Florence by the Signory, and, on the 12th of April 1334, was appointed Chief Architect of the State and Master of the Cathedral Works. Since the death of Arnolfo, in 1310, the progress of the Duomo had languished, but now the Magistrates declared their intention of erecting a bell-tower which, in height