for both the first and the second labour without
delay; and for restoring the whole work a wet sponge sufficed. Finally,
seeing that it would take too long were I to wish to relate all the
tricks, as well as all the pictures, that Buonamico Buffalmacco made,
and above all when frequenting the shop of Maso del Saggio, which was
the resort of citizens and of all the gay and mischievous spirits that
there were in Florence, I will make an end of discoursing about him.

He died at the age of seventy-eight, and being very poor and having done
more spending than earning, by reason of being such in character, he was
supported in his illness by the Company of the Misericordia in S. Maria
Nuova, the hospital of Florence; and then, being dead, he was buried in
the Ossa (for so they call a cloister, or rather cemetery, of the
hospital), like the rest of the poor, in the year 1340. The works of
this man were prized while he lived, and since then, for works of that
age, they have been ever extolled.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 15: Proverbial expression, equivalent to our "twinkling of an
eye."]

AMBROGIO LORENZETTI

[Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD

(_After the painting by_ Ambrogio Lorenzetti. _Milan: Cagnola
Collection_)]

LIFE OF AMBROGIO LORENZETTI,

PAINTER OF SIENA

If that debt is great, as without doubt it is, which craftsmen of fine
genius should acknowledge to nature, much greater should that be that is
due from us to them, seeing that they, with great solicitude, fill the
cities with noble and useful buildings and with lovely historical
compositions, gaining for themselves, for the most part, fame and riches
with their works; as did Ambrogio Lorenzetti, painter of Siena, who
showed beautiful and great invention in grouping and placing his figures
thoughtfully in historical scenes. That this is true is proved by a
scene in the Church of the Friars Minor in Siena, painted by him very
gracefully in the cloister, wherein there is represented in what manner
a youth becomes a friar, and how he and certain others go to the Soldan,
and are there beaten and sentenced to the gallows and hanged on a tree,
and finally beheaded, with the addition of a terrible tempest. In this
picture, with much art and dexterity, he counterfeited in the travailing
of the figures the turmoil of the air and the fury of the rain and of
the wind, wherefrom the modern masters have learnt the method and the
principle of this invention,