This name
it ever afterwards retained, being in the course of time enclosed
within the walls of the city.
For this story we may thank Vasari, because it helps us to realize
the love the people of Florence felt for the pictures in their churches,
and the reverence in which they held an artist who could paint a more
beautiful picture of the Virgin and Child than any they had seen before.
It is difficult to think of the population of a town to-day walking
in procession to honour the painter of a fine picture; but a picture
of the Madonna was a very precious thing indeed to a Florentine of
the thirteenth century, and we may try to imagine ourselves walking
joyfully in that Florentine procession so as the better to understand
Florentine Art.
I have repeated this legend about Cimabue, because he was the master
of Giotto, who is called the Father of Modern Painting. The story is
that Cimabue one day came upon the boy Giotto, who was a shepherd,
and found him drawing a sheep with a pointed piece of stone upon a
smooth surface of rock. He was so much struck with the drawing that
he took the boy home and taught him, and soon he in his turn far
surpassed his master.
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