ria Novella, very happily. On the first, which is over the door
whereby one enters, he made the life of S. Dominic; and on that which
follows in the direction of the church, he represented the Religious
Order of the same Saint fighting against the heretics, represented by
wolves, which are attacking some sheep, which are defended by many dogs
spotted with black and white, and the wolves are beaten back and slain.
There are also certain heretics, who, being convinced in disputation,
are tearing their books and penitently confessing themselves, and so
their souls are passing through the gate of Paradise, wherein are many
little figures that are doing diverse things. In Heaven is seen the
glory of the Saints, and Jesus Christ; and in the world below remain the
vain pleasures and delights, in human figures, and above all in the
shape of women who are seated, among whom is the Madonna Laura of
Petrarca, portrayed from life and clothed in green, with a little flame
of fire between her breast and her throat. There is also the Church of
Christ, and, as a guard for her, the Pope, the Emperor, the Kings, the
Cardinals, the Bishops, and all the Christian Princes; and among them,
beside a Knight of Rhodes, is Messer Francesco Petrarca, also portrayed
from the life, which Simone did in order to enhance by his works the
fame of the man who had made him immortal. For the Universal Church he
painted the Church of S. Maria del Fiore, not as it stands to-day, but
as he had drawn it from the model and design that the architect Arnolfo
had left in the Office of Works for the guidance of those who had to
continue the building after him; of which models, by reason of the
little care of the Wardens of Works of S. Maria del Fiore, as it has
been said in another place, there would be no memorial for us if Simone
had not left it painted in this work. On the third wall, which is that
of the altar, he made the Passion of Christ, who, issuing from Jerusalem
with the Cross on His shoulder, is going to Mount Calvary, followed by a
very great multitude. Arriving there, He is seen raised on the Cross
between the Thieves, with the other circumstances that accompany this
story. I will say nothing of there being therein a good number of
horses, of the casting of lots by the servants of the court for the
garments of Christ, of the raising of the Holy Fathers from the Limbo of
Hell, and of all the other well-conceived inventions, which belong not
so much to a