dy seated sewing, to
whom a clothed child who is seated, is offering a bird, done with
such care that although it is small it merits no less praise than the
more ambitious efforts of the master.

On the completion of this work and the settling of his affairs,
Stefano was summoned to Pistoia by the lords there, and was set by
them to paint the chapel of St James in the year 1346. In the vault
he did a God the Father with some apostles, and on the side walls the
life of the saint, notably the scene where his mother, the wife of
Zebedee, asks Jesus Christ to permit that her two sons shall sit, one
on His right hand and the other on His left in the kingdom of His
Father. Near this is a fine presentation of the beheading of the
saint. It is thought that Maso, called Giottino, of whom I shall
speak afterwards, was the son of this Stefano, and although, on
account of his name, many believe him to be the son of Giotto, I
consider it all but certain that he was rather the son of Stefano,
both because of certain documents which I have seen, and also because
of some notices written in good faith by Lorenzo Ghiberti and by
Domenico del Grillandaio. However, this may be, and to return to
Stefano, to him is due the credit of the greatest improvement in
painting since the days of Giotto; because, besides being more varied
in his inventions, he showed more unity in colouring and more shading
than all the others, and above all, in diligence he had no rival. And
although the foreshortenings which he made exhibit, as I have said,
a bad manner owing to the difficulties of execution, yet as the first
investigator of these difficulties he deserves a much higher place
than those who follow after the path has been made plain for them.
Thus a great debt is due to Stefano, because he who presses on
through the darkness and shows the way, heartens the others, enabling
them to overcome the difficulties of the way, so that in time they
arrive at the desired haven. In Perugia also, in the church of S.
Domenico, Stefano began in fresco the chapel of St Catherine which
is still unfinished.

At the same time there lived a Sienese painter, called Ugolino, of
considerable repute, and a great friend of Stefano. He did many
pictures and chapels in all parts of Italy. But he kept in great part
to the Byzantine style, to which he had become attached by habit, and
always preferred, from a caprice of his own, to follow the manner of
Cimabue rather than th