Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/170

156 the demons; and for all this the devils being angry with us, and having more power by night than by day, they play these tricks with us. I do believe, too, that they will get worse and worse, if this practice of rising to work in the night be not altogether abandoned.” By these and other discourses of the kind, Buffalmacco managed his master so well, the priest supporting his assertions and opinions, that Tafi ceased to rise in the night, and the devils ceased to carry lights about the house. But, a few months after, incited by the love of gain, and forgetting his terrors, Andrea Tafi began to arise as before, and to call Buffalmacco to work in the night. The beetles also then recommenced their wanderings, so that Andrea was compelled by his fears to desist entirely from that practice, being earnestly advised to do so by the priest. Nay, the story becoming known through the city, produced such an effect that neither Tafi nor other painters dared for a long time to work in the night.

Some time after this event, as Franco Sacchetti further relates, Buffalmacco having become a tolerably good master, left Andrea Tafi and began to work for himself; nor did he ever want commissions. Now it happened that he took a house, wherein he made his dwelling as well as studio, and where he had a weaver of wool for his neighbour. This fellow, a rich man for his station, was a sort of upstart, on whom his neighbours had imposed the name of Capodoca, and who compelled his wife to rise before dawn, which was about the time when Buffalmacco, who had worked till then, was going to bed. This woman placed herself at her wheel, which she had unluckily planted exactly opposite to the pillow of Buonamico, where she span so industriously, that he could get no sleep for the noise. Finding this, our painter betook himself to considering how best he could remedy the evil; nor was it long before he discovered the means of doing so. His room was separated from that of Capodoca by a wall of bricks only, behind which was the hearth of his troublesome neighbour; and by means of a cavity between the bricks, Buonamico could see what she wms doing about her fire. Never slow at inventing mischief, the painter made a long tube, which he filled with salt, and choosing the moment when