Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/169

Rh to awake and proceed to their work. This provoked Buonamico, who did not approve of being aroused from the sweetest of his sleep: he bethought himself therefore of finding some means by which Andrea might be prevented from rising so early, and soon discovered what he sought. From a badly swept cellar he collected some thirty large beetles, and on the back of each he fastened a minute taper, by the aid of short and fine needles. These tapers he lighted at the time when Andrea Tafi was accustomed to awake, and sent the beetles one by one into the chamber of his master, through a cleft in the door. The latter aroused himself at the hour when he was wont to call Buffalmacco, but seeing these lights wandering about his room, he began to tremble, like an old goose as he was, and in great terror repeated his prayers and psalms, recommending himself to God: finally, hiding his head within his bed-clothes, he made no attempt to call Buffalmacco that night, but lay trembling and terrified till the morning. Having risen when it was quite light, Tafi. inquired of Buonamico if he had seen more than a thousand demons, as he had himself done. Buonamico replied that he had seen nothing, having kept his eyes closed; and wondered that he had not been called to work. “ Call thee to work!” exclaimed the master; “ I had other things to think of beside painting, and am resolved to stay in this house no longer’7. The following night, although Buonamico put three beetles only into the chamber of his master, yet Tafi, what with the terror inspired by the past night, and the fear of those few demons that he saw remaining, could get no sleep, and no sooner beheld the daylight than he rose and left the house, resolving never to return to it again; and many persuasions were needed to make him change his purpose. Finally, Buffalmacco having brought him the priest of their parish, the latter comforted him as well as he could; and Tafi, discoursing of the affair with Buonamico, the disciple remarked, that he had ever been taught to consider the demons as the greatest enemies of God, and that, by consequence, they must also be most deadly adversaries to the painters: “ For,” said Buffalmacco, “ besides that we always make them most hideous, we think of nothing but painting saints, both men and women, on walls and pictures; which is much worse, since we thereby render men better and more devout, to the great despite of