"Oh dissi lui non se' tu Oderisi,
L'onor d'Agubbio, e l'onor di quell'arte
Che alluminar è chiamata a Parisi?
Frate, diss'egli, più ridon le carte
Che pennellegia Franco Bolognese:
L'onor è tutto or suo, e mio in parte.
Ben non sarei stato sì cortese
Mentre ch'io vissi per lo gran disìo
Dell'eccellenza, ove mio cor intese.
Di tal superbia qui si paga il fio."
[5] The Greeks, during the earliest periods, having uniformly represented the Virgin in so rude a style, were always pleased with similar paintings. I state this to remove a very prevalent error, that every Madonna of Greek style, with distended eyes, long fingers, and dark complexion, in the style of that of Pisa, called Degli Organi, or those of Cimabue, is to be referred to the remotest dates. Indeed I have seen specimens of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and even eighteenth centuries, particularly in the Classe Museum, in that of Cattaio, and in the palaces of Venetian nobles. One in the possession of the E. E. Signori Giustiniani Recanati, has, notwithstanding its very antique air, red letters inscribed on a gold ground, expressing, ΧΕΙΡ Ε᾿ΜΜΑΝΟΥΗΛ ΙΕΡΕΩϹ ..... α ... λξ, Manus Emanuelis Sacerdotis. an. 1660. From the hand of the same Greek priest, well known to Venetian artists, there are other altar-pieces with a similar inscription; and it is still customary in that city to reproduce specimens of a similar kind, to satisfy the continual inquiries of the Greek merchants. To judge correctly, then, of the age of such images, we must look for other indications besides their design, such as the letters, (see [ vol.i. p. 49]), the fashion of the cornice, the method of colouring, or those cherubs, holding a gold crown over the head of the Virgin, in the edges and the folds of whose drapery are imprinted marks of ages nearer to our own.
[6] It is remarkable that, a century previous to the arrival of Giotto, we find in Ravenna one Johannes Pictor; a fact supplied by the learned Count Fantuzzi, to whom both Ravenna and the public owe so much valuable information. See his "Monumenti Ravennati, during the middle ages, for the most part inedited," vol.i. p. 347. In vol. ii. p. 210, there is mention of a parchment of 1246, in which one Graziadeo, a notary, orders that in the Portuense church there be made "imagines magnæ et spatiosæ ad aurum," which means mosaic, or painting upon a gold ground, a custom so much practised in those times.
[7] To this period belonged that Joannes Rimerici Pictor Arimini, who is pointed out to us in 1386 by Count Marco Fantuzzi, in his Monumenti Ravennati, vol. vi. edited in the year 1804.
[8] In the above named volume (vi) we find mention of the son of this distinguished man: "Magister Antonius Pictor quondam Mag. Bictini Pictoris de Arimino, 1456."
[9] I made a mistake in my former edition in supposing him to have been a pupil of Bellino, who died in 1516. Concerning this Gio. who subscribed himself likewise Gio. Francesco, we observe that Oretti, in his Memorie, MSS., points out two pictures with the dates of 1459 and 1461. He adds, that there are accounts of his having been living in 1470.
[10] Morelli Notizie, p. 109.