QUEIS SEMPER VIVUM SPIRAT IN ORE DECUS?
NON HAEC TAM VARIIS FINXIT SIMULACRA FIGURIS
NATURA, INGENIO F[OE]TIBUS APTA SUO:
EST OPUS ARTIFICIS: PINXIT VIVA ORA BENOXUS;
O SUPERI, VIVOS FUNDITE IN ORA SONOS.

Throughout this whole work there are scattered innumerable portraits
from the life; but, since we have not knowledge of them all, I will
mention only those that I have recognized as important, and those that I
know by means of some record. In the scene of the Queen of Sheba going
to visit Solomon there is the portrait of Marsilio Ficino among certain
prelates, with those of Argiropolo, a very learned Greek, and of Batista
Platina, whom he had previously portrayed in Rome; while he himself is
on horseback, in the form of an old man shaven and wearing a black cap,
in the fold of which there is a white paper, perchance as a sign, or
because he intended to write his own name thereon.

In the same city of Pisa, for the Nuns of S. Benedetto a Ripa d'Arno, he
painted all the stories of the life of that Saint; and in the building
of the Company of the Florentines, which then stood where the Monastery
of S. Vito now is, he wrought the panel and many other pictures. In the
Duomo, behind the chair of the Archbishop, he painted a S. Thomas
Aquinas on a little panel in distemper, with an infinite number of
learned men disputing over his works, among whom there is a portrait of
Pope Sixtus IV, together with a number of Cardinals and many Chiefs and
Generals of various Orders. This is the best and most highly finished
work that Benozzo ever made. In S. Caterina, a seat of the Preaching
Friars in the same city, he executed two panels in distemper, which are
known very well by the manner; and he also painted another in the Church
of S. Niccola, with two in S. Croce without Pisa.

In his youth, Benozzo also painted the altar of S. Bastiano in the Pieve
of San Gimignano, opposite to the principal chapel; and in the Hall of
the Council there are some figures, partly by his hand, and partly old
works restored by him. For the Monks of Monte Oliveto, in the same
territory, he painted a Crucifix and other pictures; but the best work
that he made in that place was in the principal chapel of S. Agostino,
where he painted stories of S. Augustine in fresco, from his conversion
to his death; of the whole of which work I have the design by his hand
in my book, together with many drawings of the aforesaid scenes in the
Campo Sa