abours of Paolo in painting, for he drew so much
that he left to his relatives, as I have learnt from their own lips,
whole chests full of drawings. But, although it is a good thing to draw,
it is nevertheless better to make complete pictures, seeing that
pictures have longer life than drawings. In our book of drawings there
are many figures, studies in perspective, birds, and animals, beautiful
to a marvel, but the best of all is a mazzocchio drawn only with lines,
so beautiful that nothing save the patience of Paolo could have executed
it. Paolo, although he was an eccentric person, loved talent in his
fellow-craftsmen, and in order that some memory of them might go down to
posterity, he painted five distinguished men with his own hand on a long
panel, which he kept in his house in memory of them. One was Giotto, the
painter, standing for the light and origin of art; the second was
Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, for architecture; Donatello, for sculpture;
himself, for perspective and animals; and, for mathematics, Giovanni
Manetti, his friend, with whom he often conferred and discoursed on the
problems of Euclid.

It is said that having been commissioned to paint, over the door of S.
Tommaso in the Mercato Vecchio, that Saint feeling for the wound in the
side of Christ, Paolo put into that work all the effort that he could,
saying that he wished to show therein the full extent of his worth and
knowledge; and so he caused a screen of planks to be made, to the end
that no one might be able to see his work until it was finished.
Wherefore Donato, meeting him one day all alone, said to him: "And what
sort of work may this be of thine, that thou keepest it screened so
closely?" And Paolo said in answer: "Thou shalt see it. Let that suffice
thee." Donato would not constrain him to say more, thinking to see some
miracle, as usual, when the time came. Afterwards, chancing one morning
to be in the Mercato Vecchio buying fruit, Donato saw Paolo uncovering
his work, whereupon he saluted him courteously, and was asked by Paolo
himself, who was curious and anxious to hear his judgment on it, what he
thought of that picture. Donato, having studied the work long and well,
exclaimed: "Ah, Paolo, thou oughtest to be covering it up, and here thou
art uncovering it!" Whereupon Paolo was much aggrieved, feeling that he
was receiving much more by way of blame than he expected to receive by
way of praise for this last labour of his; and not ha