life-like;
and his excellence is also displayed in the vigour, disposition, and
posture of the sailors and other people, particularly of one figure
who is speaking with others and putting his hand to his face spits
into the sea. Certainly these things may be classed among the very
best works in painting produced by the master, because, in spite of
the large number of figures, there is not one which is not produced
with the most consummate art, being at the same time exhibited in an
attractive posture. Accordingly there is small need for wonder that
the Signor Malatesta loaded him with rewards and praise. When Giotto
had completed his works for this Signor, he did a St Thomas Aquinas
reading to his brethren for the outside of the church door of S.
Cataldo at Rimini at the request of the prior, who was a Florentine.
Having set out thence he returned to Ravenna, where he executed a
much admired painting in fresco in a chapel of S. Giovanni
Evangelista. When he next returned to Florence, laden with honours
and riches, he made a large wooden crucifix in tempera for S. Marco,
of more than life-size, with a gold ground, and it was put on the
right-hand side of the church. He made another like it for S. Maria
Novella, in which his pupil Puccio Capanna collaborated with him.
This is now over the principal entrance to the church, on the
right-hand side, above the tomb of the Gaddi. For the same church he
made a St Louis, for Paolo di Lotto Ardinghelli, with portraits of
the donor and his wife at the saint's feet. This picture is placed on
the screen.

In the following year, 1327, occurred the death of Guido Tarlati da
Pietramala, bishop and lord of Arezzo, at Massa di Maremma, on his
return from Lucca, where he had been visiting the Emperor. His body
was brought to Arezzo, where it received the honour of a stately
funeral, and Pietro Saccone and Dolfo da Pietramala, the bishop's
brother, determined to erect a marble tomb which should be worthy of
the greatness of such a man, who had been both spiritual and temporal
lord and the leader of the Ghibelline party in Tuscany. Accordingly
they wrote to Giotto, desiring him to design a very rich tomb, as
ornate as possible; and when they had supplied him with the necessary
measurements, they asked him to send them at once the man who was, in
his opinion, the most excellent sculptor then living in Italy, for
they relied entirely upon his judgment. Giotto, who was very
courteous, prepare