Note 69 — Front matter (continued 3)

Later documents of the convent speak of a crucifix painted in 1236 by Giunta Pisano with a portrait of Brother Elias "taken from life" and the following inscription:

Frater Elias fieri fecit Jesu Christe pie Misere pecantis Helie Giunta Pisanus me pinxit. a.d.m. mccxxxvi.

It hung from a beam in the Upper Church until 1624 when it suddenly disappeared, and it seems to have inspired Padre Angeli (author of the "Collis Paradisi") with the theory that Giunta Pisano was the first to paint in San Francesco, ascribing to him, as some have continued to do, the frescoes in the choir and transept of the Upper Church. Messrs Crowe and Cavacaselle say, on what authority it is impossible to discover, that the middle aisle of the Lower Church "seems to have been painted between 1225 and 1250," ignoring the fact that Pope Gregory only laid the foundation stone of the Basilica in 1228. Without trying to find such early dates for the history of art at Assisi, it appears to us quite wonderful enough that some fifty or sixty years after the ceremony of the consecration in 1253, Cimabue and his contemporaries—Giotto and his Tuscan followers—had completed their work in both churches.