Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/180

166 associated with Buonamico in this work. He too is celebrated by Boccaccio, as a man of joyous memory; and when the stories of the faqade were finished, he painted, in the same church of St. Anastasia, the altar of St. Ursula with her company of virgins. In one hand of this saint, the artist placed a standard, bearing the arms of Pisa—namely, a white cross on a field of red; the other hand is extended to a woman, who, climbing between two rocks, has one foot in the sea, and stretches out both hands to the saint in the act of supplication. This female form represents Pisa. She bears a golden horn upon her head, and wears a mantle sprinkled over with circlets and eagles. Being hard pressed by the waves, she earnestly implores the help of the saint.

While employed on this work, Bruno complained that his faces had not the life and expression distinguishing those of Buonamico; when the latter, in his playful manner, undertook to shew him how his figures might be rendered, not life-like only, but even eloquently expressive. He then bade Bruno paint words proceeding from the mouth of the woman who is recommending herself to the saint, with those which the saint utters in reply proceeding in like manner from the mouth of the latter; which BufFalmacco had seen done in the works of Cimabue. And this method, as it pleased Bruno and other dull people of that day, so does it equally satisfy certain simpletons of our own, who are well served by artists as commonplace as themselves. It must, in truth, be allowed to be an extraordinary thing, that a practice thus originating in a jest, and in no other way, should have passed into general use; insomuch, that even a great part of the Campo Santo, decorated by much esteemed masters, is full of this absurdity. The works of Buonamico greatly pleased the people of Pisa, and he was therefore employed by the superintendent of the Campo Santo, to paint four historical pictures in fresco for that cemetery. The events depicted commence with the creation of the world, and close with the building of Noah’s ark. Around these stories was painted an ornamental border, wherein the artist placed his own portrait. It will be found