ng from the monastery, in such wise as do the
sisters and nuns of our own day; which enclosure lasted until the year
1470.

[Illustration: THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN

(_After the polyptych by_ Don Lorenzo Monaco. _Florence: Uffizi, 1309_)

_Anderson_]

But to return to Don Lorenzo; he taught Francesco Fiorentino, who, after
his death, painted the shrine that is on the Canto di S. Maria Novella,
at the head of the Via della Scala, on the way to the Sala del Papa; and
he taught another disciple, a Pisan, who painted a Madonna, S. Peter, S.
John the Baptist, S. Francis, and S. Ranieri, and three scenes with
little figures on the predella of the altar, in the Church of S.
Francesco at Pisa, in the Chapel of Rutilio di Ser Baccio Maggiolini;
and this work, painted in 1315, was held passing good for something
wrought in distemper. In my book of drawings I have, by the hand of Don
Lorenzo, the Theological Virtues done in chiaroscuro with good design
and beautiful and graceful manner, insomuch that they are peradventure
better than the drawings of any other master whatsoever of those times.
A passing good painter in the time of Don Lorenzo was Antonio Vite of
Pistoia, who, besides many other works--as it has been said in the Life
of Starnina--painted, in the Palace of the Ceppo at Prato, the life of
Francesco di Marco, founder of that holy place.

[Illustration: DON LORENZO MONACO: THE ANNUNCIATION

(_Florence: Accademia, 143. Panel_)]

TADDEO BARTOLI

[Illustration: TADDEO BARTOLI: MADONNA, CHILD, AND ANGELS

(_Perugia: Pinacoteca. Panel_)]

LIFE OF TADDEO BARTOLI

PAINTER OF SIENA

It is the due of those craftsmen who, in order to acquire a name, put
themselves to much fatigue in painting, that their works should be
placed, not in a dark and dishonourable position, wherefore they may be
blamed by those who have no more understanding than this, but in some
spot where, through the nobility of the place, through the lights, and
through the air, they can be rightly seen and studied by all, as was and
still is the public work of the chapel that Taddeo Bartoli, painter of
Siena, wrought in the Palazzo della Signoria in Siena.

Taddeo, then, was the son of Bartolo di Maestro Fredi, who was a
mediocre painter in his day and painted the whole wall (on the left hand
as one enters) of the Pieve of San Gimignano with stories of the Old
Testament; in which work, which in truth was not very good, there may