APELLES AND THE ORIGIN OF GIOTTO'S O Norman E. Land Giorgio Vasari recountsone of the most telling and often-citedtales about Renais- sance artists. It is about Giotto di Bondone, and it appears in both the first (1550) and second (1568) editionsof his Lives of the Artists.' Pope Benedict XI, Vasari says, wishing to have some paintings made in the churchof St. Peter, sentone of his courtiers to find out the sort of man Giotto wasandto discover the quality of his works. Before arriving in Florence, however, the courtier visited manyartists in Siena with the inten- tion of obtaining some drawings from them to send to Rome. Eventually, the pope's emissary appeared at Giotto's workshop and,after explaining to him what the pope had in mind, asked for a drawing to send to His Holiness. Always a courteousman, Giottotook some paper anda pen,whichhe dippedin red ink, and,placinghis arm firm- ly against his side, drew a perfect circle. He thengave the drawingto the courtier, who, thinking he was being made a fool, asked, "Is this the only drawing you will giveme?" Giotto replied that the drawing was suffi- cient and told the courtierto sendit to the pope with the others. The dissatisfied couftier, realizing thatGiottowouldnot give him another drawing, departed. Neverthe- less, whenthe coufiiersent the drawings by the Sienese artists to the pope,he included Giotto's, explaining how the artist hadmade the circlewithoutmovinghis arm and with- out a compass. The pope and someof his more knowledgeable courtiers fully under- stoodGiotto's drawing and saw clearlythat he was superior to all the other artistswho had submitted examples of their art. According to Vasari, the storyof Giotto's drawing wastold far and wide, and gave rise to a sayin-p used to describe thick-headed people: "Tu seipii tondoche I'O di Giotto" [You are rounderthan Giotto's O]. Vasari explains that the significance of theproverb lies in the double meaning of the word "tondo" (round), which in the Tuscan dialectcan refer both to a pert'ect circle and to a slow-witted person. Giotto's O is both an example of the artist'sskill and, as An- drew Ladis hasexplained, "a deft character- izatron of the fool who ran the errand" for thepope.? Although Vasari's story is clearly a fic- tion, he might not haveinvented it-at least not entirely. As evidence suggests, the tale might have existed, perhaps in more than one version, before the sixteenth century. A line referring to Giotto's O appears in a poem, attributed to Domenico di Giovanni, calledIl Burchiello ( 1404-1449): "Che pii che l'O di Giotto mi par tondo."3 Virtually the sameline is recorded in the so-called Detti Piacevole (or II Bel Libretto)of Ange- lo Poliziano: "Tu sei piD tondo che I'O di Giotto."{ These lines imply a tale about Giotto and the making of his O, although we cannot know for certainwhat the details of that storymight have been. Still, if the tale was similar to Vasari's version, it wonld have echoed Pliny the SOURCE: Notes in the History of Art, 25, 1 (2005) © Norman E. Land