Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/205

1498] friar, who had lectured in philosophy at Oxford and Paris, and went by the name of Doctor Parisinus. The seventeen subjects with which the painter adorned the choir of the Augustinian church were, no doubt, chosen by the learned doctor, whose portrait appears in another large fresco of St. Sebastian protecting the people of San Gimignano from the plague; but the charming fancy and lively humour of the different stories are all Benozzo's own. His love of children finds full play in the early scenes of Augustine's school life, where the boys are seated at lessons in the portico, and the stern schoolmaster points approvingly at the diligent child with one hand, while the other is lifted to strike an unruly scholar. The unlucky victim appears hoisted on the back of a bigger boy, looking round, half curious and half frightened, to see what will happen to him, and another rosy-cheeked child peeps up from his lesson-book to gaze at his comrade in disgrace. No less interesting is the fresco which represents Augustine teaching rhetoric in Rome. The scene is laid in a stately Renaissance hall, with villas and gardens in the background, and on the marble pavement a little dog with shaven back is sitting up on its haunches, while the scholars stand or sit around with varying expressions of attention or indifference on their faces, and one youth is engaged in turning back the richly trimmed sleeve of his fur mantle. Benozzo's taste for architecture is displayed in the Gothic towers and palaces of Tagaste, and in the scene of Augustine's departure from Rome, where he manages not only to introduce the chief monuments of the imperial