Giotto died in
1336, but as Dante was banished, and was even sentenced to be burned, in
1302, it was obvious the work must have been executed before that time;
since the portrait of one outlawed and capitally convicted as an enemy to
the commonwealth would never have been ordered or tolerated in the chapel
of the royal palace. It was clear, then, that the portrait must have been
painted between 1290 and 1302.
Mr. Wilde now revolved in his own mind the possibility that this precious
relic might remain undestroyed under its coat of whitewash, and might yet
be restored to the world. For a moment he felt an impulse to undertake the
enterprise; but feared that, in a foreigner from a new world, any part of
which is unrepresented at the Tuscan court, it might appear like an
intrusion. He soon however found a zealous coadjutor. This was one Giovanni
Aubrey Bezzi, a Piedmontese exile, who had long been a resident in England,
and was familiar with its language and literature. He was now on a visit to
Florence, which liberal and hospitable city is always open to men of merit
who for political reasons have been excluded from other parts of Italy.
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