uching the sea with one of her feet, is
stretching both her hands to her in the act of supplication; which
woman, representing Pisa, and having on her head a crown of gold and
over her shoulders a mantle covered with circlets and eagles, is seeking
assistance from that Saint, being much in travail in the sea. Now, for
the reason that in painting this work Bruno was bewailing that the
figures which he was making therein had not the same life as those of
Buonamico, the latter, in his waggish way, in order to teach him to make
his figures not merely vivacious but actually speaking, made him paint
some words issuing from the mouth of that woman who is supplicating the
Saint, and the answer of the Saint to her, a device that Buonamico had
seen in the works that had been made in the same city by Cimabue. This
expedient, even as it pleased Bruno and the other thick-witted men of
those times, in like manner pleases certain boors to-day, who are served
therein by craftsmen as vulgar as themselves. And in truth it seems
extraordinary that from this beginning there should have passed into use
a device that was employed for a jest and for no other reason, insomuch
that even a great part of the Campo Santo, wrought by masters of repute,
is full of this rubbish.

The works of Buonamico, then, finding much favour with the Pisans, he
was charged by the Warden of the Works of the Campo Santo to make four
scenes in fresco, from the beginning of the world up to the construction
of Noah's Ark, and round the scenes an ornamental border, wherein he
made his own portrait from the life--namely, in a frieze, in the middle
of which, and on the corners, are some heads, among which, as I have
said, is seen his own, with a cap exactly like the one that is seen
above. And because in this work there is a God, who is upholding with
his arms the heavens and the elements--nay, the whole body of the
universe--Buonamico, in order to explain his story with verses similar
to the pictures of that age, wrote this sonnet in capital letters at the
foot, with his own hand, as may still be seen; which sonnet, by reason
of its antiquity and of the simplicity of the language of those times,
it has seemed good to me to include in this place, although in my
opinion it is not likely to give much pleasure, save perchance as
something that bears witness as to what was the knowledge of the men of
that century:

Voi che avisate questa dipintura
Di Dio pietoso,