One day, Giotto returned to his workshop and was surprised to find a richly dressed man going round the easels and observing his paintings very carefully.
He immediately approached the painter.
"His Holiness Benedict XI," he said to Giotto,
"would like someone to paint large and beautiful frescoes in the basilicas of St. Peter and St. John, but has not yet decided which artist to entrust with this task. I am here on his behalf to ask for one of your works: the best one! I will be taking it to Rome, along with those of many other artists. The pope must choose which of these is the most beautiful painting and will ask the author to decorate the basilicas. Which is your masterpiece?"
Giotto, instead of removing his best painting from the easel, laid out a large sheet of white paper. He then dipped the brush into a jar of red paint and began painting by hand, in a flash, a circle so perfect that it looked as if it had been made with a compass.
"This is my best painting!" Giotto exclaimed, giving the sheet to the man.
"You want me to take this to His Holiness?", he commented surprised and offended.
"I do not believe that you have nothing better to give me. Or, perhaps, you want to make fun of me!".
"No, Sir," Giotto replied, "I have nothing else to give you. The Pope will like this."
In fact, a few days later, Giotto received the great news that he had been chosen among all the other Italian painters. The Pope knew, from that simple pattern (the circle) that the artist had great skills and that his art represented perfection.
