umber of servants performing various services in that
scene; not to mention the grandeur of an edifice drawn in perspective,
which proves the talent of Domenico no less clearly than do the other
pictures.

The panel, which stands by itself, he executed in distemper, as he did
the other figures in the six pictures. Besides the Madonna, who is
seated in the sky with the Child in her arms, and the other saints who
are round her, there are S. Laurence and S. Stephen, who are absolutely
alive, with S. Vincent and S. Peter Martyr, who lack nothing save
speech. It is true that a part of this panel remained unfinished in
consequence of his death; but he had carried it so far on that there was
nothing left to complete save certain figures on the back, where there
is the Resurrection of Christ, with three figures in the other pictures,
and the whole was afterwards finished by Benedetto and David
Ghirlandajo, his brothers. This chapel was held to be a very beautiful
work, grand, ornate, and lovely, through the vivacity of the colours,
through the masterly finish in their application on the walls, and
because very little retouching was done on the dry, not to mention the
invention and the composition of the subjects. And in truth Domenico
deserves the greatest praise on all accounts, particularly for the
liveliness of the heads, which, being portrayed from nature, present to
every eye most lifelike effigies of many distinguished persons.

For the same Giovanni Tornabuoni, at his Villa of Casso Maccherelli,
which stands on the River Terzolle at no great distance from the city,
he painted a chapel which has since been half destroyed through being
too near to the river; but the paintings, although they have been
uncovered for many years, continually washed by rain and scorched by the
sun, have remained so fresh that one might think they had been
covered--so great is the value of working in fresco, when the work is
done with care and judgment and not retouched on the dry. He also made
many figures of Florentine Saints, with most beautiful adornments, in
that hall of the Palace of the Signoria which contains the marvellous
clock of Lorenzo della Volpaia. And so great was his love of working and
of giving satisfaction to all, that he commanded his lads to accept any
work that might be brought to his shop, even hoops for women's baskets,
saying that if they would not do them he would paint them himself, to
the end that none might leave t