The children of Giotto were remarkably ill-favored. Dante, one day, quizzed him by asking, "Giotto, how is it that you, who make the children of others so beautiful, make your own so ugly?" "Ah, my dear friend," replied the painter, "mine were made in the dark."
"Giotto," says Vasari, "having passed his life in the production of so many admirable works, and proved himself a good Christian, as well as an excellent painter, resigned his soul to God in the year 1336, not only to the great regret of his fellow citizens, but of all who had known him, or even heard his name. He was honorably entombed, as his high deserts had well merited, having been beloved all his life, but more especially by the learned men of all professions." Dante and Petrarch were his warm admirers, and immortalized him in their verse. The commentator of Dante, who was cotemporary with Giotto, says, "Giotto was, and is, the most eminent of all the painters of Florence, and to this his works bear testimony in Rome, Naples, Avignon, Florence, Padua, and many other parts of the world."
The first worthy successor of Giotto in the Florentine school, was Buffalmacco, whose name has been immortalized by Boccaccio in his _Decameron_, as a man of most facetious character. He executed many works in fresco and distemper, but they have mostly perished. He chiefly excelled in Crucifixions and Ascensions. He was born, according to Vasari, in 1262, and died in 1340, aged 78; but Baldinucci says that he lived later than 1358. His name is mentioned in the old Book of the Company of Painters, under the date of 1351, (_Editors of the Florentine edition of Vasari_, 1846.). Buffalmacco was a merry wag, and a careless spendthrift, and died in the public hospital.