But for all this Andrea
was ever of the opinion that the good ancient statues were more perfect
and had greater beauty in their various parts than is shown by nature,
since, as he judged and seemed to see from those statues, the excellent
masters of old had wrested from living people all the perfection of
nature, which rarely assembles and unites all possible beauty into one
single body, so that it is necessary to take one part from one body and
another part from another. In addition to this, it appeared to him that
the statues were more complete and more thorough in the muscles, veins,
nerves, and other particulars, which nature, covering their sharpness
somewhat with the tenderness and softness of flesh, sometimes makes less
evident, save perchance in the body of an old man or in one greatly
emaciated; but such bodies, for other reasons, are avoided by craftsmen.
And that he was greatly enamoured of this opinion is recognized from his
works, in which, in truth, the manner is seen to be somewhat hard and
sometimes suggesting stone rather than living flesh. Be this as it may,
in this last scene, which gave infinite satisfaction, Andrea portrayed
Squarcione in an ugly and corpulent figure, lance and sword in hand. In
the same work he portrayed the Florentine Noferi, son of Messer Palla
Strozzi, Messer Girolamo della Valle, a most excellent physician, Messer
Bonifazio Fuzimeliga, Doctor of Laws, Niccolo, goldsmith to Pope
Innocent VIII, and Baldassarre da Leccio, all very much his friends,
whom he represented clad in white armour, burnished and resplendent, as
real armour is, and truly with a beautiful manner. He also portrayed
there the Chevalier Messer Bonramino, and a certain Bishop of Hungary, a
man wholly witless, who would wander about Rome all day, and then at
night would lie down to sleep like a beast in a stable; and he made a
portrait of Marsilio Pazzo in the person of the executioner who is
cutting off the head of S. James, together with one of himself. This
work, in short, by reason of its excellence, brought him a very great
name.

The while that he was working on this chapel, he also painted a panel,
which was placed on the altar of S. Luca in S. Justina, and afterwards
he wrought in fresco the arch that is over the door of S. Antonino, on
which he wrote his name. In Verona he painted a panel for the altar of
S. Cristofano and S. Antonio, and he made some figures at the corner of
the Piazza della Paglia. In