Abstract
The works of Cimabue, especialy his frescoes in the church of S. Francesco, Assisi, provide a field of battle for the historians of art. One party, with Prof. Thode (1) at its head, sees in this artist one of the geniuses who led the way to the perfection of the Renaissance; this idea has been taken up and greatly exaggerated by Prof. Strzygowski (2), who adds a long list of works to the already considerable number which Prof. Thode attributes to Cimabue.Wickhoft; on the other hand, is one of the supporters of the extreme opposition to this theory: the name of Cimabue is familiar to us through various documents which have been preserved; so too are the names of many other painters, but have we any reason to believe that, apart from the small fragment of mosaic at Pisa, we have any other works of his? If not, on what can we base our estimate of this painter’s value? On the extremely small amount of evidence existing, Messrs. Zimmermann, Fry, Langton, Douglas, Richter, Wood Brown, Aubert, Suida and others, have formed different opinions on this subject, nor do they agree as to which of a number of works should be attributed to Cimabue.
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Reference
In his work on St. Francis; also in Sind uns Werken von Cimabue erhalten, Repert. f. Kunstwissensch., XIII, 189o, p. i.
J. Strzygowski, Cimabue u. Rom, Vienna, 1888.
Monthly Review, Dec. 1900.
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In the document of 1302, in which he is charged with the execution of a picture for the hospital, he is mentioned as “Magister Cenni dictus Cimabue pictor condam Pepi di florentia di populo Sancti Ambrosii”.
C. de Fabric: y, Il libro di Antonio Bilh e le sue copie nella Bibl. Naz. di Firenze, Arch Stor. Ital., V, tome, VII, 1891, p. 219. C. Frey. Il libro di A.B. etc, Berlin, 1892.
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A. Aubert, Die Malerische Dekoration des S. Francesco Kirche in Assisi, ein Beitrag zur Lösung der Cimabue Frage, Leipzig, 1907, p. 8o, thinks that this decoration must have already been completed as in the enumeration of works to be executed this does not play an important part. I hardly think we should base our opinion on so uncertain an argument.
l) The subjects of the scenes which I have marked with a point of interrogation are to me uncertain; in general I agree with Prof. Thode’s assertions on the subject.
The same gesture has already been seen in the case of an angel in the Entombment by the Master of St. Francis at Perugia and in a small Crucifixion of the second half of the ~3d(century in the Gallery of Siena.
See, besides the literature already quoted, the following books or articles on Cimabue: J. Strzygowski, Cimabue und Rom, Vienna, 1888. J. P. Richter, Lectures on the National Gallery, London, 1898, p. i.
P. Galetti, Istoricografi fiorentini, Arte e Storia, XVIII, 1899, p. 124. Wood Brown, Cimabue and Duccio at Sta. Maria Novella, Repert. f. Kunstwissensch., XXIV. 1901, p. 127. Langton Douglas,The real Cimabue, Nineteenth Century, 1903, p. 453.
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A. MLlrrïro_, Le pitture del portico della vecchia basilica Vaticana etc., Nuov. Bullet. di Arch. Crist., 1913. Wilperf, op. cit., p. 41o.
They represented the Adoration of the Magi, the Lord before one of His Judges, the Presentation in the Temple and the Flight into Egypt.
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van Marle, R. (1923). Cimabue and his School. In: The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-0933-6_10
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