Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/253

Rh capitular church of Arezzo, Berna painted numerous stories from the life of Our Lady, in the chapel of the Paganelli; and among the figures is a portrait, taken from the life, of the Beato Binieri, a holy man and prophet of that family, who bestows alms on the crowd of poor persons by whom he is surrounded. In the church of San Bartolommeo, also, this master executed various representations from the Old Testament, together with an adoration of the Magi, and in the church of the Spirito Santo he painted stories from the life of St. John the Evangelist. Among the figures of this last work, Berna has left us portraits of himself and of several of his friends, nobles of Arezzo. On the completion of this undertaking, the artist returned to his native city, where he painted numerous pictures on panel, both large and small; but he did not remain long at Siena, being invited to Florence, where he decorated the chapel of San Niccolo, in the church of the Spirito Santo, a work that was highly praised, and which we have already mentioned, with other pictures which were consumed in the lamentable conflagration of that church. At San Gimignano, in the Valdelsa, Berna painted certain frescoes in the ; they represent stories from the New Testament, These works he had nearly brought to a conclusion, when he unhappily fell from the scaffold to the floor, and was so grievously injured, that he died in two days, more to the loss of art than of himself, for he departed from this life to a better one. His remains were very honourably entombed in the capitular church aforesaid, by the people of San Gimignano, who solemnized his obsequies with much pomp, and who gave proof after his death of the esteem in which they held him while living, not ceasing for many months after his interment to suspend verses to his honour, in Latin and the mother tongue, on the tomb of the lamented artist. The men of that country have indeed been ever devoted to the belles lettres, and they herein rendered the