[146] ‘Wearing over the long hair of the Frenchmen of the period a coroneted cap.’—Crowe and Cavalcaselle, History of Painting in Italy (1864), i. 264.
[147] Vol. i. p. 269.
[148] The Priorate was the highest office to which a citizen could aspire, but by no means the highest in Florence.
[149] I suppose the meaning is ‘immediately previous.’
[150] John Villani, Cronica, viii. 40 and 49; and Perrens, Hist. de Florence, under date of 1301. Charles entered Florence on the 1st of November of that year, and left it in the following April.
[151] Who the other Florentines in the fresco are does not greatly affect the present question. Villani says that along with Dante Giotto painted Corso Donati and Brunetto Latini.
[152] Only twenty-five, if the commonly accepted date of his birth is correct. In any case, he was still a young man.
[153] It is true that, on technical grounds, it has been questioned if it is Giotto’s at all; but there is more than sufficient reason to think it is. With such doubts however we are scarcely here concerned. Even were it proved to be by a pupil, everything in the text that applies to the question of date would still remain in point.
[154] J. Villani, ix. 353.
[155] J. Villani, x. 1.