resent day a
picture worthy of much praise, by reason of its having been preserved as
fresh and beautiful as though it had only just been painted. Gherardo,
then, having come by reason of this and of his other works into very
great repute and fame, both in his own country and abroad, envious
death, ever the enemy of noble actions, cut short in the finest period
of his labour the infinite expectation of much greater works, for which
the world was looking from him; for at the age of forty-nine he came
unexpectedly to his end, and was buried with most honourable obsequies
in the Church of S. Jacopo Sopra Arno.

Disciples of Gherardo were Masolino da Panicale, who was first an
excellent goldsmith and afterwards a painter, and certain others, of
whom, seeing that they were not very able men, there is no need to
speak. The portrait of Gherardo is in the aforesaid story of S. Jerome,
in one of the figures that are round that Saint when he is dying, in
profile, with a cap wound round the head and wearing a buckled mantle.
In our book are certain drawings by Gherardo, made with the pen on
parchment, which are not otherwise than passing good.

LIPPO

LIFE OF LIPPO

PAINTER OF FLORENCE

Invention has ever been held, and ever will be, the true mother of
architecture, of painting, and of poetry--nay, of all the finer arts
also, and of all the marvellous works that are made by men, for the
reason that it pleases the craftsmen much, and displays their fantasies
and the caprices of fanciful brains that seek out variety in all things;
and these discoveries ever exalt with marvellous praise all those who,
employing themselves in honourable ways, give a form marvellous in
beauty, under the covering and shadow of a veil, to the works that they
make, now praising others dexterously, and now blaming them without
being openly understood. Lippo, then, a painter of Florence, who was as
rare and as varied in invention as he was truly unfortunate in his works
and in his life--for it lasted but a little time--was born in Florence,
about the year of our salvation 1354; and although he applied himself to
the art of painting very late, when already grown up, nevertheless, he
was so well assisted by nature, which inclined him to this, and by his
intelligence, which was very beautiful, that soon he produced therein
marvellous fruits. Wherefore, beginning his labours in Florence, he made
in S. Benedetto (a very large and beautiful mo