Other paintings still extant by this master are the following:—In the Academy of Arts in Florence, a Madonna and Child, with eight angels, and some prophets in niches,— better than the Rucellai picture in composition and study of nature, but more archaic in type, and the colour now spoiled (this work was painted for the Badia of S. Trinita, Florence); in the National Gallery, London, a Madonna and Child with Angels, which came from the Ugo Baldi collection, and had probably once been in the church of S. Croce, Florence; in the Louvre, a Madonna and Child, with twenty-six medallions in the frame, originally in the church of S. Francesco, Pisa. In the lower church of the Basilica of S. Francesco at Assisi, Cimabue, succeeding Giunta da Pisa, probably adorned the south transept,— painting a colossal Virgin and Child between four Angels, above the altar of the Conception, and a large figure of St Francis. In the upper church, north transept, he has the Saviour Enthroned and some Angels; and, on the central ceiling of the transept, the Four Evangelists with Angels. Many other works in both the lower and the upper church have been ascribed to Cimabue, but with very scanty evidence; even the above-named can be assigned to him only as matter of probability. Numerous others which he indisputably did paint have perished,—for instance, a series (earlier in date than the Rucellai picture) in the Carmine church at Padua, which were destroyed by a fire.

From Assisi Cimabue returned to Florence. In the closing years of his life he was appointed capomaestro of the mosaics of the Cathedral of Pisa, and was afterwards, hardly a year before his death, joined with Arnolfo di Lapo as architect for the Cathedral of Florence. In Pisa he executed a Majesty in the apse,—Christ in glory between the Virgin and John the Evangelist, a mosaic, now much damaged, which stamps him as the leading artist of his time in that material. This was probably the last work that he produced.

The debt which art owes to Cimabue is not limited to his own performances. He was the master of Giotto, whom he found a shepherd boy of ten, in the pastures of Vespignano, drawing with a coal on a slate the figure of a lamb. Cimabue took him to Florence, and instructed him in the art; and after his death Giotto occupied a house which had belonged to his master in the Via del Cocomero. Another painter with whom Cimabue is said to have been intimate was Gaddo Gaddi.

It had always been supposed that the bodily semblance of Cimabue is preserved to us in a portrait-figure by Simon Memmi painted in the Cappella degli Spagnuoli, in S. Maria Novella,—a thin hooded face in profile, with small beard, reddish and pointed. This is now extremely dubious. Simone Martini of Siena (commonly called Memmi) was born in 1283, and would therefore have been about nineteen years of age when Cimabue died; it is not certain that he painted the work in question, or that the figure represents Cimabue. The Florentine master is spoken of by a nearly contemporary commentator on Dante (the so-called Anonimo, who wrote about 1334) as arrogante e disdegnoso ; sc “arrogant and passionate” that, if any one, or if he himself, found a fault in any work of his, however cherished till then, he would abandon it in disgust. This, however, to a modem mind, looks more like an aspiring and fastidious desire for perfection than any such form of “arrogance and passion” as blemishes a man’s character. Giovanni Cimabue was buried in the cathedral of Florence, 8. Maria del Fiore, with an epitaph written by one of the Nini :—

’ ∙ Credidit ut Cimabos picturae castra tenere Sic tenuit vivens; nunc tenet astra poli

Here we recognize distinctly the suggestion of the first clause in the famous triplet of Dante:

“Credette Cimabue nella pintura

Tener lo campo; ed ora ha Giotto il grido, 81 ehe la fama di colui s’oscura.” (W. Μ. R.)

The next thirteen years of Cimarosa’s life are not marked by any event worth mentioning. He wrote a number of operas for the various theatres of Italy, residing temporarily in Rome, in Naples, or wherever else his vocation as a conductor of his works happened to call him. From 1784-1787 he lived at Florence, writing exclusively for the theatre of that city. The productions of this period of his life are very numerous, consisting of operas, both comic and serious, cantatas, and various sacred compositions. The following works may be mentioned amongst many others :— Caic Mario; the three Biblical operas, Assalone,LaGiuditta, and Il Sacrificio d ’ Abramo ; also II Convito di Pietra ; and La Ballerina Amante, a pretty comic opera first performed at Venice with enormous success. None of these works have survived, and their individual merits hardly give us cause to regret their loss. Excessive productiveness of this kind cannot but become mechanical. But this is no fault of Cimarosa’s. The enormous demand of the Italian stage has become fatal to the genius of some of the most gifted composers of that country both in the last and in the present century. Looking at Cimarosa’s works collectively, it may be said that they represent a style of considerab!e individuality and a perfect mastership of dramatic effect, so far at least as the vocal part is concerned. Cimarosa’s orchestra, like that of most Italian composers, is somewhat meagre, but here also the comparatively primitive stage of orchestration at the time he wrote ought to be taken into account. Cimarosa seldom succeeds in the highest walks of his art. His comic operas are infinitely superior to those in which a tragic subject compelled him to attempt dramatic pathos. As far as grace and melodious charm are concerned, Cimarosa was surpassed by none of his contemporaries, not even by Paesiello, with whom he shared for a long time the leadership of the Italian school.

In 1787 Cimarosa went to St Petersburg by invitation of the Empress Catherine II. At her court he remained four years and wrote an enormous number of compositions, mostly of the nature of pièces d ’ occasion. Of most of these not even the names are on record. In 1792 Cimarosa left St Petersburg, the northern climate of Russia proving hurtful to the native of Italy. By invitation of the Emperor Leopold Π. he went to Vienna, and it was there that he produced the masterpiece on which his claim to immortality must mainly rest. Il Matrimonio Segreto ranks amongst the highest achievements of light operatic music. Iu Italy it is surpassed by Rossini’s Barbieri alone. After the lapse of more than eighty years it evinces its vitality at theatres and concert halls wherever the whole opera or detached pieces are heard. Its humour is founded on human nature itself, and is therefore independent of local and temporal conditions. 1793 Cimarosa returned to Naples where The Secret Marriage and other works were received with great applause. Amongst the works belonging to his last stay in Naples, the charming opera Le Astuzie Feminili may be mentioned. This period of his life is said to have been embittered by the intrigues of envious and hostile persons, amongst whom one is sorry to meet with Paesiello his old rival. During the occupation of Naples by the troops of the French Republic, Cimarosa joined the liberal party, and on the return of the Bourbons, was like many of his political friends condemned to death. By the intercession of influential admirers his sentence was commuted into banishment, and the composer left Naples with the intention of returning to St Petersburg. But his health was broken, and after much suffering he died at Venice in 1801 of inflammation of the intestines. The nature of his disease led to the rumour of his having been poisoned by his enemies, which, however, a formal inquest proved to be unfounded. He worked till the last moment of his life, and one of his operas, Artemisia, remained unfinished at Lis death. (f. h.)