e way to the Canto alla Cuculia, on
the corner of the convent, he painted that shrine that is still seen
there, with Our Lady and other Saints round her, wherein both the heads
and the other parts lean strongly towards the modern manner, for the
reason that he sought to vary and to blend the flesh-colours, and to
harmonize all the figures with grace and judgment by means of a variety
of colours and draperies. In like manner he wrought the stories of
Constantine with much diligence in the Chapel of S. Silvestro in S.
Croce, showing very beautiful ideas in the gestures of the figures; and
then, behind an ornament of marble made for the tomb of Messer Bertino
de' Bardi, a man who at that time had held honourable military rank, he
made this Messer Bertino in armour, after the life, issuing from a
sepulchre on his knees, being summoned with the sound of the trumpets of
the Judgment by two angels, who are in the air accompanying a
beautifully-wrought Christ in the clouds. On the right hand of the
entrance of the door of S. Pancrazio the same man made a Christ who is
bearing His Cross, and some Saints near Him, that have exactly the
manner of Giotto. In S. Gallo (which convent was without the Gate called
by the same name, and was destroyed in the siege) in a cloister, there
was a Pieta painted in fresco, whereof there is a copy in the aforesaid
S. Pancrazio, on a pillar beside the principal chapel. In S. Maria
Novella, in the Chapel of S. Lorenzo de' Giuochi, as one enters by the
door on the left, on the front wall, he wrought in fresco a S. Cosimo
and a S. Damiano, and, in Ognissanti, a S. Christopher and a S. George,
which were spoilt by the malice of time, and then restored by other
painters by reason of the ignorance of a Provost little conversant with
such matters. In the said church there has remained whole the arch that
is over the door of the sacristy, wherein there is in fresco a Madonna
with the Child in her arms by the hand of Tommaso, which is a good work,
by reason of his having wrought it with diligence.

By means of these works Giottino had acquired so good a name, imitating
his master both in design and in invention, as it has been told, that
there was said to be in him the spirit of Giotto himself, both because
of the vividness of his colouring and of his mastery in draughtsmanship;
and in the year 1343, on July 2, when the Duke of Athens was driven out
by the people and when he had renounced the sovereignty an