fferent result. Hence poor Antonio, feeling himself
repelled and rebutted, thought it would be as well to go back to
Florence, deciding that he would never again return to Venice, but
would make Florence his home. Having reached that city, he painted in
an arch in the cloister of S. Spirito the calling of Peter and Andrew
from their nets, with Zebedee and his sons. Under the three arches of
Stefano he painted the miracle of the loaves and fishes, exhibiting
great diligence and love, as may be seen in the figure of Christ
Himself, whose face and aspect betray His compassion for the crowd
and the ardent charity which leads Him to distribute the bread. The
same scene also shows very beautifully the affection of an apostle,
who is very active in distributing the bread from a basket. The
picture affords a good illustration of the value in art of always
painting figures so that they appear to speak, for otherwise they are
not prized. Antonio showed this on the facade in a small
representation of the Fall of the Manna, executed with such skill and
finished with such grace, that it may truly be called excellent. He
next did some stories of St Stephen in the predella of the high altar
of S. Stefano at the Ponte Vecchio, with so much loving care that
even in illuminations it would not be possible to find more graceful
or more delicate work. Again he painted the tympanum over the door of
S. Antonio on the Ponte alla Carraia. This and the church were both
pulled down in our own day by Monsignor Ricasoli, bishop of Pistoia,
because they took away the view from his houses, and in any case even
if he had not done so, we should have been deprived of the work, for,
as I have said elsewhere, the flood of 1557 carried away two arches
on this side, as well as that part of the bridge on which the little
church of S. Antonio was situated. After these works Antonio was
invited to Pisa by the wardens of the Campo Santo, and there
continued the series dealing with the life of St Ranieri, a holy man
of that city, which had been begun by Simone of Siena and under his
direction. In the first part of Antonio's portion of the work is a
representation of the embarkation of Ranieri to return to Pisa, with
a goodly number of figures executed with diligence, including the
portrait of Count Gaddo, who had died ten years before, and of Neri,
his uncle, who had been lord of Pisa. Another notable figure in the
group is that of a man possessed, with distorted