which the men of the
Borgo San Friano held on May 1 in certain boats on the Arno; and that
when the Ponte alla Carraia, which was then of wood, collapsed by reason
of the too great weight of the people who had flocked to that spectacle,
he did not die there, as many others did, because, precisely at the
moment when the bridge collapsed on to the structure that was
representing Hell on the boats in the Arno, he had gone to get some
things that were wanting for the festival.

Being summoned to Pisa no long time after these events, Buonamico
painted many stories of the Old Testament in the Abbey of S. Paolo a
Ripa d'Arno, then belonging to the Monks of Vallombrosa, in both
transepts of the church, on three sides, and from the roof down to the
floor, beginning with the Creation of man, and continuing up to the
completion of the Tower of Nimrod. In this work, although it is to-day
for the greater part spoilt, there are seen vivacity in the figures,
good skill and loveliness in the colouring, and signs to show that the
hand of Buonamico could very well express the conceptions of his mind,
although he had little power of design. On the wall of the right
transept which is opposite to that wherein is the side door, in some
stories of S. Anastasia, there are seen certain ancient costumes and
head-dresses, very charming and beautiful, in some women who are painted
there with graceful manner. Not less beautiful, also, are those figures
that are in a boat, with well-conceived attitudes, among which is the
portrait of Pope Alexander IV, which Buonamico had, so it is said, from
Tafo his master, who had portrayed that Pontiff in mosaic in S. Pietro.
In the last scene, likewise, wherein is the martyrdom of that Saint and
of others, Buonamico expressed very well in the faces the fear of death
and the grief and terror of those who are standing to see her tortured
and put to death, while she stands bound to a tree and over the fire.

A companion of Buonamico in this work was Bruno di Giovanni, a painter,
who is thus called in the old book of the Company; which Bruno (also
celebrated as a gay fellow by Boccaccio), the said scenes on the walls
being finished, painted the altar of S. Ursula with the company of
virgins, in the same church. He made in one hand of the said Saint a
standard with the arms of Pisa, which are a white cross on a field of
red, and he made her offering the other hand to a woman who, rising
between two mountains and to