PIETRO

CAVALLINI (c. 1259-1344)  , Italian painter, born in Rome, was an artist of the earliest epoch of the modern Roman school, and was taught painting and mosaic by Giotto while employed at Rome; it is believed that he assisted his master in the mosaic of the Navicella or ship of St Peter, in the porch of the church of that saint . He also studied under the Cosmati . Lanzi describes him as an adept in both arts, and mentions with approbation his grand fresco of a Crucifixion at Assisi, still in tolerable preservation; he was, moreover, versed in architecture and in sculpture . According to George Vertue, it is highly, probable that Cavallini executed, in 1279, the mosaics and other ornaments of the tomb of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey . He would thus be the " Petrus Civis Romanus " whose name is inscribed on the shrine; but a comparison of dates invalidates this surmise . He died in 1344, at the age of eighty-five, in the odour of sanctity, having in his later years been a man of eminent piety . He is said to have carved for the Basilica of San Paolo fuori le Mura, close to Rome, a crucifix which spoke in 1370 to a female saint .