that words did not
suffice, he frequently gave blows to the poor woman, who was in
despair, because she thought she had been more than cautious in
salting the dish. As her husband beat her from time to time, she
tried to excuse herself, which only increased the anger of Goosehead,
so that he began to strike her again, and as she cried out at the top
of her voice, the noise penetrated the whole neighbourhood, and drew
thither Buffalmacco among others. When he heard of what Goosehead
accused his wife and how she excused herself, he said to Goosehead:
"Worthy friend, you should be reasonable; you complain that your
morning and evening dishes are too salt, but I only wonder that your
wife makes them so well as she does. I cannot understand how she is
able to keep going all day, considering that she is sitting up the
whole night over her spinning, and does not, I believe, sleep an
hour. Let her give up rising at midnight, and you will see, when she
has enough sleep, her brain will not wander, and she will not fall
into such serious mistakes." Then he turned to the other neighbours,
and succeeded so well in convincing them that he had found the true
explanation that they all told Goosehead that Buonamico was right,
and that he should follow this advice. Goosehead, believing what he
was told, ordered his wife not to rise so soon, and the dishes were
afterwards reasonably salted, except sometimes when the goodwife had
risen early, because then Buffalmacco had recourse to his remedy, a
fact which induced Goosehead to cause his wife to give up early
rising altogether.

One of the earliest works Buffalmacco did was the decoration of the
church of the nunnery of Faenza at Florence, where the citadel of
Prato now is. Here he represented scenes from the life of Christ,
among other things, everything in which is in good style, and he also
did there the massacre of the Innocents by Herod's order. Here he
displays with considerable vigour the expressions of the murderers as
well as of the other figures, because some nurses and mothers, who
are snatching the children from the hands of the murderers, are using
their hands, nails, teeth, and every bodily agent to help them as
much as possible, showing that their minds are not less full of rage
and fury than of grief. As the monastery is destroyed to-day, nothing
more of this work is to be seen than a coloured drawing in our book
of designs, which contains the sketch for this by Buonamic