These entries clearly prove what a large part the painters took in the work of the Masonic brotherhood, and how the frescoing of the wall was a component part of a Comacine church, and carried on, like their building, by the joint labour of many Masters. If proof of this is wanting, go where you will in Italy, and if you can find any church that has a wall of its original early Christian or mediæval building remaining, of any age between the fourth and the fourteenth century, scratch that wall, and you will find frescoes have been there. For instance, in Santa Croce, and San Miniato at Florence, and at Fiesole, wherever the restorer's plaster has been taken off, precious works of the old Masters have come to light. But in all these we have to imagine what a mediæval church was like from the fragments that remain: to see the real Comacine church of the twelfth or thirteenth century, one must go to the ancient city of San Gimignano with its many towers, where they remain untouched by the restorer, and unwhitewashed by the seventeenth-century destroyer. There the whole churches, every inch of them, are covered with scripture or saintly story in glowing colours. Our illustration shows one by Barna of Siena before the painters seceded.
The Spanish chapel at S. Maria Novella is another unspoiled and entire specimen of the profuse use of fresco by the guild. Most of these churches were decorated by fresco artists who belonged to the Masonic Guild before the secession of the painters, and being so, it is probable that they worked together, as the architectural Masters were accustomed to do, and this would account for the difficulty of distinguishing in the Spanish chapel between the work of the Memmi and that of the Lorenzetti, who certainly worked together at Siena, and probably also in Florence. Cimabue and Giotto were undoubtedly Magistri of the Masonic Guild, for both of them were builders as well as painters, and were employed together with other Masters.
When Cimabue discovered Giotto drawing his sheep, he took him into his school in the lodge, he being then a qualified Master. But the boy must have passed his novitiate, not only in Magister Cimabue's own atelier, but also in the wider teaching of the school and laborerium, or he would never have got the commission to build the tower, nor the power to sculpture his "Hymn of Labour" around it.
This was the era when pictorial art was freeing its wings from the shackles of tradition and set conventionalism, and from the bondage of working under the rule of another art like architecture. The painters, especially when the oil process was invented, saw a new and independent career open before them, and struck for freedom. The Sienese led the way. In 1355 they seceded from the Masonic Guild, and even forsook their four crowned Saints; inaugurating their own company under the banner and protection of St. Luke. They called it L' Arte de' Pittori Senesi. In reading their laws[209] one cannot but recognize that they were framed on the same lines as those of the Masonic Guild, the chief changes being the difference of patron saint, and the omission of some technical rules relating especially to architecture.
Fresco at S. Gimignano. By Magister Barna of Siena.
The names of the artists forming this first school of painting are sufficient proof of their former connection with the Comacine Guild. Here is Francesco di Vannuccio, who was called in a council of the Opera in 1356, and Lando di Stefano di Meo, whose name appears first in the Masonic Guild, and then among the painters; Andrea di Vanni, whose father and ancestors had been in it, and who in 1318 was himself working in the Duomo of Siena with his father, where he is entered in the books as Andreuccio (poor little Andrea) di Vanni. There are sundry other members of the Vanni family, some of whom were on the lists of the Masonic Guild before they are found as painters. Then there was Bartolo, son of Magister Fredi, with his son Andrea and grandson Giorgio. Bartolo must have been an old man at this time, so that his frescoes at S. Gimignano would have been done before the painters seceded. We find also Andrea and Benedetto di Bindo in 1363 inscribed in the roll of "Magistri lapidum," and in 1389 in that of the painters; several of their family have also enrolled themselves there. This Magister Bindo was a Lombard from Val D'Orcia; other Comacine names are there also, such as Domenico di Valtellino, and Cristofano di Chosona (Cossogna, near Pallanza).