gi with many figures, and a very
beautiful Day of Judgment. Summoned, next, to the Certosa, he painted
for the Acciaiuoli, who built that place, the panel of the high-altar,
which was consumed by fire in our day by reason of the inadvertence of a
sacristan of that monastery, who left the thurible full of fire hanging
from the altar, wherefore the panel was burnt, and afterwards the altar
was made by those monks, as it stands to-day, entirely of marble. In
that same place, also, the same master made in fresco, over a wardrobe
that is in the said chapel, a Transfiguration of Christ which is very
beautiful. And because he studied the science of herbs in Dioscorides,
being much inclined thereunto by nature, and delighting to understand
the property and virtue of each one of them, at last he abandoned
painting and gave himself to the distilling of simples and to seeking
them out with all diligence. Changing thus from painter to physician,
for a long time he followed this art. Finally, falling sick from disease
of the stomach, or, as others say, from plague caught while acting as
physician, he finished the course of his life at the age of
seventy-four, in the year 1384, when there was a very great plague in
Florence, having been no less expert as physician than he was diligent
as painter; wherefore, having made infinite experiments in medicine by
means of those who had availed themselves of him in their necessities,
he left to the world a very good name for himself in both one and the
other of these arts. Antonio drew very graciously with the pen, and so
well in chiaroscuro, that some drawings by him which are in our book,
wherein he made the little arch of S. Spirito, are the best of those
times. A disciple of Antonio was Gherardo Starnina, the Florentine, who
imitated him greatly; and Paolo Uccello, who was likewise his disciple,
did him no small honour.

The portrait of Antonio Viniziano, by his own hand, is in the Campo
Santo in Pisa.

JACOPO DI CASENTINO

LIFE OF JACOPO DI CASENTINO

PAINTER

Now that the fame and the renown of the pictures of Giotto and his
disciples had been heard for many years, many, desirous of acquiring
fame and riches by means of the art of painting, and animated by zealous
aspirations and by the inclination of nature, began to advance towards
the improvement of the art, with a firm belief that, exercising
themselves therein, they would surpass in excellence both Giotto and
Ta