Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/207

1498] he was largely assisted by inferior artists, and the resemblance which many of his figures bear, both in type and stature, to those of Fra Lippo, is explained by the fact that one of the Carmelite's former assistants, Giusto di Andrea, worked under him at San Gimignano. It was to intercede for Giusto's brother, who had been caught in the act of stealing the monks' bed-clothes at Certaldo, that Benozzo wrote a letter to young Lorenzo de' Medici, whom he addresses as "Most dear to me in Christ," lamenting the scandal which his apprentice had caused, and explaining that up till this time he had always borne an excellent character. "But perhaps," he adds, "God has allowed this to happen for some good end." In the meantime he thanks Lorenzo—who had already, it appears, intervened in the matter—for his good offices with the Vicar of Certaldo, and ends with renewed protestations of devotion to himself and his house, praying that Christ may be with him in eternity.

This letter is dated 4th July, 1467, when Benozzo was still busily engaged on his works at San Gimignano. By the end of the year, however, he had left for Pisa, where a new and gigantic task was awaiting him. This was the decoration of the north wall of the Campo Santo, which had been left unfinished ever since Puccio da Orvieto had painted his three subjects of the Creation, the Death of Abel, and the Flood, eighty years before. On the 9th of January, 1468, he signed a contract with the magistrates of Pisa, by which he agreed to cover the remainder of the north wall with frescoes, at the price of sixty-six florins for each subject, "a task,"