Giotto was born near Florence, in 1266. Employed as a boy in watching sheep, he is said to have been one day discovered by the artist Cimabue, as he was sketching one of his flock upon a stone. The painter, surprised at the promise shown by the boy, who was not more than ten years old, took him to Florence, and made him his pupil. Giotto’s earliest works were executed at Florence, and at the age of thirty he had already attained such fame that he was invited to Rome by Pope Boniface VIII., to take part in the decoration of the ancient Basilica of Saint Peter. The _Navicella_ mosaic which he there executed, representing the Disciples in the Storm, is preserved in the vestibule of the present Saint Peter’s. The famous story of “Giotto’s O” belongs to this episode in his career. When the envoy sent by the pope to engage his services begged for some drawing or design which might be shown to his holiness in proof of the artist’s talent, Giotto, taking an ordinary brush full of color, and steadying his arm against his side, described a perfect circle on an upright panel with a sweep of the wrist, and offered this manual feat as sufficient evidence of his powers. The story shows the importance attached by a great artist to mere precision in workmanship, and teaches the useful lesson that genius, unsupported by the skill only to be acquired by discipline and labor, is wanting in the first condition which makes great achievements possible. This visit to Rome took place about 1298; soon afterward we find Giotto engaged on his frescoes in the church of Saint Francis at Assisi, a series of allegorical designs illustrating the saint’s spiritual life and character. In 1306 he was working at the fine series of frescoes in the Arena Chapel at Padua, which represent thirty-eight scenes from the lives of the Virgin and of Christ. We here see Giotto in the fulness of his powers; the incidents are treated with a charming simplicity and sentiment for nature, and he rises to great solemnity of style in the more important scenes. Important works by Giotto are found in many other places beside those mentioned above, including especially Naples, Ravenna, Milan, Pisa and Lucca. Perhaps the finest are those which have been discovered of late years in the Church of Santa Croce at Florence under coats of whitewash which happily had preserved them almost intact; the “Last Supper,” in the refectory of the convent attached to the church, is in remarkable preservation, and is a magnificent example of the style of the time. The twenty-six panels which he painted for the presses in the sacristry of the same church are good illustrations of his method of treatment; natural and dignified with the interest concentrated on the figures; the background and accessories being treated in the simplest possible manner, and hardly more than symbols expressing the locality in which the scene is enacted. Giotto was the first of the moderns who attempted portrait-painting with