Giorgio Vasari

“ THE PAINTER JACOPO DI CASENTINO.
[Flourished in the middle of the fourteenth century.]
The fame of Giotto, the renown attached to his works, and to those of his disciples, having for several years been much bruited abroad, many persons, desirous of acquiring honour and riches by the art of painting, and incited to study by nature and inclination, began to labour for the amelioration of the art, most of them being firmly persuaded that by their efforts the attainments of Giotto, Taddeo, and all the other painters, would be far surpassed. ”

“ For the ancient confraternity of San Giovanni di Peducci, also, Jacopo di Casentino painted numerous stories from the life of that saint, but these works have been covered with whitewash. He decorated the chapel of San Cristofano in the church of San Domenico, in like manner, taking for his subject the Beato Masuolo liberating from prison a merchant of the Fei family, by whom the chapel was erected. This Beato Masuolo, who was a prophet, had predicted many misfortunes while he was yet alive, to the people of Arezzo. ”

“ From these beginnings, sometimes assembling together and sometimes not, the Company of painters has continued until it has arrived at its present condition, as is narrated in the new canons of the same, approved by that benignant protector of the arts of design, our most illustrious lord, Duke Cosmo. ”