30. They were thus inattentive to the cultivation of this, as well as of the other fine arts, because they considered warfare, and the arts which tended directly to support this interest, as alone worthy of the attention of a citizen of their republic; and painting, even after the time of Pacuvius, was considered effeminate and disgraceful. Rome, therefore, cannot be said, at any time, to have produced a single artist who could approach the excellences of those of its refined neighbors, the Greeks. 31. They, however, having ornamented their metropolis and villas with specimens of the arts plundered from the cities of Greece and Sicily, began, at length, to appreciate their excellences; and finally, under the first emperors, they encouraged, with great munificence, the Greeks who resorted to their city for employment. 32. But, both sculpture and painting, as well as architecture, declined with Roman civilization. Still, they continued to exist, especially in the Byzantine or Eastern empire, although in a very inferior state. The art under consideration was preserved chiefly by its application to the purposes of Christianity. It was revived in Italy, in the beginning of the twelfth century, by means of several Grecian artists, who had been employed to ornament the churches, and other edifices at Pisa, Venice, and Florence. 33. The works of Apollonius, one of these Greeks, excited in Giovanni Cimabue a spirit of emulation; and, having been initiated into the practice of the art, he executed a picture of the Virgin Mary, as large as life, for a church dedicated to her, at Florence. This production excited enthusiastic delight in his fellow-citizens, who carried it in procession, with the sound of trumpets, to its place of destination, and celebrated the day as a public feast. 34. Encouraged by this applause, Cimabue pursued the art with ardor; and, although considered a prodigy in his time, his utmost efforts failed to produce tolerable specimens of the art. He, however, far excelled his immediate predecessors; and, by introducing more correct proportions, by giving more life and expression to his figures, and by some other improvements, he became the founder of the art as it exists in modern times. He was born at Florence, in 1240, and died at the age of sixty. 35. The favorite pupil of Cimabue, was Giotto, whom he raised from a shepherd to be a painter; and by him the art was still more relieved from the Greek imperfections. He abandoned the use of labels as means of distinguishing the different figures of a picture, and aimed at, and attained to, real expression. He marked out to the Italians the course in which the art should be pursued, as Polygnotus had done to the Greeks near 1800 years before; although, like him, he failed in fully exemplifying his principles.