imes, was a ship that he made in this
work, which, being in travail in a tempest, was saved by that Saint; for
he made therein with great vivacity all the actions of the mariners, and
everything which is wont to befall in such accidents and travailings.
Some are casting into the insatiable sea, without a thought, the
precious merchandize won by so much sweat and labour, others are running
to see to their vessel, which is breaking up, and others, finally, to
other mariners' duties, whereof it would take too long to relate the
whole; it is enough to say that all are made with so great vividness and
beautiful method that it is a marvel. In the same place, below the lives
of the Holy Fathers painted by Pietro Laurati of Siena, Antonio made the
body of the Blessed Oliverio (together with the Abbot Panuzio, and many
events of their lives), in a sarcophagus painted to look like marble;
which figure is very well painted. In short, all these works that
Antonio made in the Campo Santo are such that they have been universally
held, and with great reason, the best of all those that have been
wrought by many excellent masters at various times in that place, for
the reason that, besides the particulars mentioned, the fact that he
painted everything in fresco, never retouching any part on the dry,
brought it about that up to our day they have remained so vivid in the
colouring that they can teach the followers of that art and make them
understand how greatly the retouching of works in fresco with other
colours, after they are dry, causes injury to their pictures and
labours, as it has been said in the treatise on Theory; for it is a
very certain fact that they are aged, and not allowed to be purified by
time, by being covered with colours that have a different body, being
tempered with gums, with tragacanths, with eggs, with size, or some
other similar substance, which tarnishes what is below, and does not
allow the course of time and the air to purify that which has been truly
wrought in fresco on the soft plaster, as they would have done if other
colours had not been superimposed on the dry.

[Footnote 1: _I.e._, Emperor.]

Having finished this work, which, being truly worthy of all praise,
brought him honourable payment from the Pisans, who loved him greatly
ever afterwards, Antonio returned to Florence, where, at Nuovoli without
the Porta a Prato, he painted in a shrine, for Giovanni degli Agli, a
Dead Christ, the story of the Ma