er his death. As I have said
elsewhere, no memory of these models would have been preserved,
owing to the negligence of the wardens of S. Maria del Fiore, had not
Simone painted them in this work. On the third side, that of the
altar, he did the Passion of Christ, who is going up from Jerusalem
with the cross on His shoulder, and proceeds to Mount Calvary,
followed by a throng of people, where He is seen raised on the cross
between the thieves, together with the other incidents of that story.
I shall not attempt to describe the presence of a good number of
horses, the throwing of lots by the servants of the court for the
raiment of Christ, the release of the Holy Fathers from limbo, and
all the other clever inventions which would be most excellent in a
modern master and are remarkable in an ancient one. Here he occupies
the entire wall and carefully makes the different scenes, one above
the other, not dividing the separate subjects from one another by
ornaments, as the ancients used to do, and according to the
practice of many moderns, who put the earth above the air four or
five times. This has been done in the principal chapel of the same
church, and in the Campo Santo at Pisa, where Simone painted many
things in fresco, and was compelled against his will to make such
divisions, as the other painters who had worked there, such as Giotto
and Buonamico his master, had begun the scenes in this bad style.
Accordingly he continued that style in the Campo Santo, and made in
fresco a Madonna above the principal door on the inside. She is borne
to heaven by a choir of angels, who sing and play so realistically
that they exhibit all the various expressions which musicians are
accustomed to show when playing or singing, such as bending the ear
to the sound, opening the mouth in various ways, raising the eyes to
heaven, puffing the cheeks, swelling the throat, and in short all the
movements which are made in music. Under this Assumption, in three
pictures, he did the life of St Ranieri of Pisa. In the first is the
youth playing the psalter, to the music of which some little
children are dancing,--very beautiful for the arrangement of the
folds, the ornamentation of the clothes, and the head-dresses of
those times. The same Ranieri is next seen rescued from such
lasciviousness by St Albert the hermit. He stands weeping with his
face down, and his eyes red with tears, full of repentance for his
sin, while God in the air, surr