city, with good grace and passing
good manner. It appears that in his youth, before making these works, he
had formerly made three large figures of terra-cotta which were placed
over the door of the Vescovado, and which are now in great part eaten
away by frost, as is also a S. Luke of grey-stone, made by the same man
while he was a youth and placed in the facade of the said Vescovado. In
the Pieve, likewise, in the Chapel of S. Biagio, he made a very
beautiful figure of the said Saint in terra-cotta; and one of that Saint
in the Church of S. Antonio, also in terra-cotta and in relief; and
another Saint, seated, over the door of the hospital of the said city.

[Illustration: S. MARK

(_After_ Niccolo Aretino. _Florence: Duomo_)

_Brogi_]

While he was making these and some other similar works, the walls of
Borgo a San Sepolcro were ruined by an earthquake, and Niccolo was sent
for to the end that he might make--as he did with good judgment--a
design for a new wall, which turned out much better and stronger than
the first. And so, continuing to work now in Arezzo, and now in the
neighbouring places, Niccolo was living very quietly and at his ease in
his own country, when war, the capital enemy of the arts, compelled him
to leave it, for, after the sons of Piero Saccone had been driven out of
Pietramala and the castle had been destroyed down to its foundations,
the city and the district of Arezzo were all in confusion. Wherefore,
departing from that territory, Niccolo betook himself to Florence,
where he had worked at other times, and for the Wardens of Works of
S. Maria del Fiore he made a statue of marble, four braccia high, which
was afterwards placed on the left hand of the principal door of that
church. In this statue, which is an Evangelist seated, Niccolo showed
that he was truly an able sculptor, and he was therefore much praised,
since up to then there had not been seen, as there was afterwards, any
better work in wholly round relief. Being then summoned to Rome by order
of Pope Boniface IX, as the best of all the architects of his time, he
fortified and gave better form to the Castle of S. Angelo. On returning
to Florence, he made two little figures in marble for the Masters of the
Mint, on that corner of Orsanmichele that faces the Guild of Wool, in
the pilaster, above the niche wherein there is now the S. Matthew, which
was made afterwards; and these figures were so well made and so well
placed on the sum