ddeo and the other painters. Among these was one Jacopo di Casentino,
who, being born, as it is read, of the family of Messer Cristoforo
Landino of Pratovecchio, was apprenticed by a friar of the Casentino,
then Prior at the Sasso della Vernia, to Taddeo Gaddi, while Taddeo was
working in that convent, to the end that he might learn drawing and
colouring in the art, wherein in a few years he succeeded so well that,
betaking himself to Florence and executing many works in company with
Giovanni da Milano in the service of Taddeo their master, he was made to
paint the shrine of the Madonna of the Mercato Vecchio, with the panel
in distemper, and likewise the one at the corner of the Piazza di S.
Niccolo and the Via del Cocomero, which were restored a few years ago,
both one and the other, by a worse master than was Jacopo; and for the
Dyers he painted that which is in S. Nofri, at the corner of the wall of
their garden, opposite to S. Giuseppe. In the meanwhile, the vaults of
Orsanmichele over the twelve piers having been brought to a finish, a
low rustic roof was placed upon them, in order to pursue as soon as
might be possible the building of that palace, which was to be the
granary of the Commune; and it was given to Jacopo di Casentino, as a
person then much practised, to paint these vaults, with instructions
that he should make there, as he did, together with the patriarchs, some
prophets and the chiefs of the tribes, which were in all sixteen figures
on a ground of ultramarine, to-day half spoilt, not to mention the other
ornaments. Next, on the walls below and on the piers, he made many
miracles of the Madonna, and other works that are recognized by the
manner.

This work finished, Jacopo returned to the Casentino, and after he had
made many works in Pratovecchio, in Poppi, and other places in that
valley, he betook himself to Arezzo, which then governed itself with the
counsel of sixty of its richest and most honoured citizens, to whose
care was committed the whole administration. There, in the principal
chapel of the Vescovado, he painted a story of S. Martin, and in the
Duomo Vecchio, now in ruins, a number of pictures, among which was the
portrait of Pope Innocent VI, in the principal chapel. Next, in the
Church of S. Bartolommeo, for the Chapter of the Canons of the Pieve, he
painted the wall where the high-altar is, and the Chapel of S. Maria
della Neve; and in the old Company of S. Giovanni de' Peducci he made