master of that age as to the most excellent of the moderns;
inasmuch as, taking up the whole walls, with very diligent judgment he
made in each wall diverse scenes on the slope of a mountain, and did not
divide scene from scene with ornamental borders, as the old painters
were wont to do, and many moderns, who put the earth over the sky four
or five times, as it is seen in the principal chapel of this same
church, and in the Campo Santo of Pisa, where, painting many works in
fresco, he was forced against his will to make such divisions, for the
other painters who had worked in that place, such as Giotto and
Buonamico his master, had begun to make their scenes with this bad
arrangement.

[Illustration: _G. H._

THE ANNUNCIATION

(_After the painting by_ Simone Sanese [Memmi _or_ Martini]. _Antwerp:
Royal Museum, 257, 258_)]

In that Campo Santo, then, following as the lesser evil the method used
by the others, Simone made in fresco, over the principal door and on the
inner side, a Madonna borne to Heaven by a choir of angels, who are
singing and playing so vividly that there are seen in them all those
various gestures that musicians are wont to make in singing or playing,
such as turning the ears to the sound, opening the mouth in diverse
ways, raising the eyes to Heaven, blowing out the cheeks, swelling the
throat, and in short all the other actions and movements that are made
in music. Under this Assumption, in three pictures, he made some scenes
from the life of S. Ranieri of Pisa. In the first scene he is shown as a
youth, playing the psaltery and making some girls dance, who are most
beautiful by reason of the air of the heads and of the loveliness of the
costumes and head-dresses of those times. Next, the same Ranieri, having
been reproved for such lasciviousness by the Blessed Alberto the Hermit,
is seen standing with his face downcast and tearful and with his eyes
red from weeping, all penitent for his sin, while God, in the sky,
surrounded by a celestial light, appears to be pardoning him. In the
second picture Ranieri, distributing his wealth to God's poor before
mounting on board ship, has round him a crowd of beggars, of cripples,
of women, and of children, all most touching in their pushing forward,
their entreating, and their thanking him. And in the same picture, also,
that Saint, having received in the Temple the gown of a pilgrim, is
standing before a Madonna, who, surrounded by many angels, is show