ndeur to the manner of our own day. There are certain figures with
garments little used in those times, whereby he began to incite the
minds of men to depart from that simplicity which should be called
rather old-fashioned than ancient. In the same work are the stories of
S. Stephen (the titular Saint of the said Pieve), distributed over the
wall on the right hand--namely, the Disputation, the Stoning, and the
Death of that Protomartyr, in whose face, as he disputes with the Jews,
Filippo depicted so much zeal and so much fervour, that it is a
difficult thing to imagine it, and much more to express it; and in the
faces and the various attitudes of the Jews he revealed their hatred,
disdain, and anger at seeing themselves overcome by him. Even more
clearly did he make manifest the brutality and rage of those who are
slaying him with stones, which they have grasped, some large, some
small, with a horrible gnashing of teeth, and with gestures wholly cruel
and enraged. None the less, amid so terrible an onslaught, S. Stephen,
raising his countenance with great calmness to Heaven, is seen making
supplication to the Eternal Father with the warmest love and fervour for
the very men who are slaying him. All these conceptions are truly very
beautiful, and serve to show to others how great is the value of
invention and of knowing how to express emotions in pictures; and this
he remembered so well, that in those who are burying S. Stephen he made
gestures so dolorous, and some faces so afflicted and broken with
weeping, that it is scarcely possible to look at them without being
moved. On the other side he painted the Birth of S. John the Baptist,
the Preaching, the Baptism, the Feast of Herod, and the Beheading of the
Saint. Here, in his countenance as he is preaching, there is seen the
Divine Spirit; with various emotions in the multitude that is listening,
joy and sorrow both in the women and in the men, who are all hanging
intently on the teaching of S. John. In the Baptism are seen beauty and
goodness; and, in the Feast of Herod, the majesty of the banquet, the
dexterity of Herodias, the astonishment of the company, and their
immeasurable grief when the severed head is presented in the charger.
Round the banqueting-table are seen innumerable figures with very
beautiful attitudes, and with good execution both in the draperies and
in the expressions of the faces. Among these, with a mirror, he
portrayed himself dressed in the blac