Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/174

160 gelists, and among these figures there is one thing veryremarkable, the action of St. Luke namely, who blows into his pen for the purpose of making the ink flow, in a manner most perfectly natural. In the pictures on the walls, moreover, of which there are five, the attitudes of the figures are very beautiful, and the whole work gives proof of a rich invention and much judgment. But as Buonamico, desirous of imparting transparency to his carnations, was in the habit of using a blue lake, as we see in this work, which in the course of time produces a salt, whereby the white and other colours are corroded and destroyed, so it is not wonderful that these paintings are much injured, while many others, executed long before, are still perfectly well preserved. I formerly thought that these works had suffered from the damp, but I have since become convinced, by experience, having carefully examined others by the same master, that it has been by this peculiarity in the practice of Buffahnacco, and not from damp, that his pictures have suffered. And they have been injured to such an extent, that neither design nor anything else is now perceptible: where the carnations have been, there remains nothing but the tinge of violet. No artist who desires long life for his pictures, therefore, should use this method. When the works just described were completed, Buonamico painted two pictures in distemper, for the Carthusian Friars of Florence: one of these is in the place where the choral books for the use of the choristers are kept; the other is in the old chapel below. In the Abbey of Florence, Buffahnacco painted, in fresco, the chapel of the Gfiochi and Bastari family, which is near the principal chapel; and this chapel, although afterwards resigned to the Boscoli family, still retains these works of Buonamico. Their subject is the life and passion of Christ, pourtrayed with great beauty and much feeling. In the countenance of Jesus, while washing the feet of his disciples, there is extreme humility and sweetness, while the faces of the Jews who lead him to Herod express the utmost fierceness and cruelty. But more particularly has the artist displayed power and facility in a Pilate, whom he has depicted in prison, and in a Judas, who