on a
wall in the chapter-house; and on one side all the Saints who have been
heads and founders of religious bodies, mourning and weeping at the foot
of the Cross, and on the other side S. Mark the Evangelist beside the
Mother of the Son of God, who has swooned at the sight of the Saviour of
the world Crucified, while round her are the Maries, all grieving and
supporting her, with S. Cosimo and S. Damiano. It is said that in the
figure of S. Cosimo Fra Giovanni portrayed from the life Nanni d'
Antonio di Banco, a sculptor and his friend. Below this work, in a
frieze above the panelling, he made a tree with S. Dominic at the foot
of it, and, in certain medallions encircled by the branches, all the
Popes, Cardinals, Bishops, Saints, and Masters of Theology whom his
Order of Preaching Friars had produced up to that time. In this work he
made many portraits from nature, being assisted by the friars, who sent
for them to various places; and they were the following: S. Dominic in
the middle, grasping the branches of the tree; Pope Innocent V, a
Frenchman; the Blessed Ugone, first Cardinal of that Order; the Blessed
Paolo, Florentine and Patriarch; S. Antonino, Archbishop of Florence;
the Blessed Giordano, a German, and the second General of that Order;
the Blessed Niccolo; the Blessed Remigio, a Florentine; and the martyr
Boninsegno, a Florentine; all these are on the right hand. On the left
are Benedict II[6] of Treviso; Giandomenico, a Florentine Cardinal;
Pietro da Palude, Patriarch of Jerusalem; Alberto Magno, a German; the
Blessed Raimondo di Catalonia, third General of the Order; the Blessed
Chiaro, a Florentine, and Provincial of Rome; S. Vincenzio di Valenza;
and the Blessed Bernardo, a Florentine. All these heads are truly
gracious and very beautiful. Then, over certain lunettes in the first
cloister, he made many very beautiful figures in fresco, and a Crucifix
with S. Dominic at the foot, which is much extolled; and in the
dormitory, besides many other things throughout the cells and on the
surface of the walls, he painted a story from the New Testament, of a
beauty beyond the power of words to describe. Particularly beautiful and
marvellous is the panel of the high-altar of that church; for, besides
the fact that the Madonna rouses all who see her to devotion by her
simplicity, and that the Saints that surround her are like her in this,
the predella, in which there are stories of the martyrdom of S. Cosimo,
S. Dam