many pictures, which were
afterwards thrown to the ground and destroyed by Gismondo, son of
Pandolfo Malatesta, who rebuilt the whole said church anew. In the
cloisters of the said place, also, opposite to the wall of the church,
he painted in fresco the story of the Blessed Michelina, which was one
of the most beautiful and excellent works that Giotto ever made, by
reason of the many and beautiful ideas that he had in working thereon;
for besides the beauty of the draperies, and the grace and vivacity of
the heads, which are miraculous, there is a young woman therein as
beautiful as ever a woman can be, who, in order to clear herself from
the false charge of adultery, is taking oath over a book in a most
wonderful attitude, holding her eyes fixed on those of her husband, who
was making her take the oath by reason of mistrust in a black son born
from her, whom he could in no way bring himself to believe to be his.
She, even as the husband is showing disdain and distrust in his face, is
making clear with the purity of her brow and of her eyes, to those who
are most intently gazing on her, her innocence and simplicity, and the
wrong that he is doing to her in making her take oath and in proclaiming
her wrongly as a harlot.

In like manner, very great feeling was that which he expressed in a sick
man stricken with certain sores, seeing that all the women who are round
him, overcome by the stench, are making certain grimaces of disgust, the
most gracious in the world. The foreshortenings, next, that are seen in
another picture among a quantity of beggars that he portrayed, are very
worthy of praise and should be held in great price among craftsmen,
because from them there came the first beginning and method of making
them, not to mention that it cannot be said that they are not passing
good for early work. But above everything else that is in this work,
most marvellous is the gesture that the aforesaid Blessed Michelina is
making towards certain usurers, who are disbursing to her the money from
the sale of her possessions for giving to the poor, seeing that in her
there is shown contempt of money and of the other things of this earth,
which appear to disgust her, and, in them, the personification of human
avarice and greed. Very beautiful, too, is the figure of one who, while
counting the money, appears to be making sign to the notary who is
writing, considering that, although he has his eyes on the notary, he is
yet keepi