was
then head of that place gave him scarcely anything to eat but cheese.
Wherefore Paolo, having grown weary of this, determined, like the shy
fellow that he was, to go no more to work there; whereupon the Abbot
sent to look for him, and Paolo, when he heard friars asking for him,
would never be at home, and if peradventure he met any couples of that
Order in the streets of Florence, he would start running and flying from
them with all his might. Now two of them, more curious than the rest and
younger than Paolo, caught him up one day and asked him for what reason
he did not return to finish the work that he had begun, and why he fled
at the sight of a friar; and Paolo answered: "You have murdered me in a
manner that I not only fly from you, but cannot show myself near any
carpenter's shop or pass by one, and all because of the thoughtlessness
of your Abbot, who, what with pies and with soups always made of cheese,
has crammed so much cheese into me that I am in terror lest, being
nothing but cheese, they may use me for making glue. And if it were to
go on any longer, I would probably be no more Paolo, but cheese." The
friars, leaving him with peals of laughter, told everything to the
Abbot, who made him return to his work, and ordered him some other fare
than cheese.

After this, he painted the dossal of S. Cosimo and S. Damiano in the
Carmine, in the Chapel of S. Girolamo (of the Pugliesi). In the house of
the Medici he painted some scenes on canvas and in distemper,
representing animals; in these he ever took delight, and in order to
paint them well he gave them very great attention, and, what is more, he
kept ever in his house pictures of birds, cats, dogs, and every sort of
strange animal whereof he could get the likeness, being unable to have
them alive by reason of his poverty; and because he delighted in birds
more than in any other kind, he was given the name of "Paolo of the
Birds" (Paolo Uccelli). In the said house, among other pictures of
animals, he made some lions, which were fighting together with movements
and a ferocity so terrible that they appeared alive. But the rarest
scene among them all was one wherein a serpent, combating with a lion,
was showing its ferocity with violent movements, with the venom spurting
from its mouth and eyes, while a country girl who is present is looking
after an ox made with most beautiful foreshortening. The actual drawing
for this ox, by the hand of Paolo, is in my boo