Some fourteen miles to the north of Florence, among the hills of the Mugello, lies the scattered hamlet of Vespignano where Giotto Bondone was born of a poor peasant family in the year 1265. Even at an early age, Vasari says, the boy was remarkable for the vivacity and quick intelligence which endeared him not only to his parents, but to all who knew him in the village and country round. He passed his childhood among them, knowing nothing of the city just across the hills, but learning much, during the long days while he wandered forth to tend his father's sheep, which was helpful to him in after years to preserve his straightforward outlook upon life and the strength and freshness of a nature that loved the sunburnt valleys and the freedom of the shepherd's existence. When Giotto was ten years old it happened that Cimabue, on his way from Florence to Vespignano upon a matter of business, found him seated by the roadside, his flock gathered near, busily employed in drawing the outline of a sheep from life upon a smooth piece of rock. Struck by the boy's industry in the pursuit of art and his evident cleverness, Cimabue hastened to obtain the father's consent to adopt and make an artist of him. Leaving the old life in the peasant's cottage for ever, Giotto now turned south along new roads, and with Cimabue by his side, saw for the first time the city of Florence, beautiful as she lay upon the banks of the Arno in a setting of wooded hills. The progress he made under Cimabue's guidance, who taught him all he knew, was marvellous indeed. At ten years of age a shepherd tracing idle fancies on the stones, then for a few years an apprentice in a Florentine workshop grinding colours with the others for his master's big Madonnas; while ten years later he had already gained the title of Master and was a famous painter, courted by popes and kings, and leaving masterpieces upon the walls of churches throughout Italy, that people of all times and countries have come and paused awhile to see.