er the date of 1351, (_Editors of the Florentine
edition of Vasari_, 1846.). Buffalmacco was a merry wag, and a careless
spendthrift, and died in the public hospital.

BUFFALMACCO AND HIS MASTER.

"Among the Three Hundred Stories of Franco Saccheti," says Vasari, "we
find it related to begin with, what our artist did in his youth--that
when Buffalmacco was studying with Andrea Tafi, his master had the habit
of rising before daylight when the nights were long, compelling his
scholars also to awake and proceed to their work. This provoked
Buonamico, who did not approve of being aroused from his sweetest
sleep. He accordingly bethought himself of finding some means by which
Andrea might be prevented from rising so early, and soon found what he
sought." Now it happened that Tafi was a very superstitious man,
believing that demons and hobgoblins walked the earth at their pleasure.
Buffalmacco, having caught about thirty large beetles, he fastened to
the back of each, by means of small needles, a minute taper, which he
lighted, and sent them one by one into his master's room, through a
crack in the door, about the time he was accustomed to rise and summon
him to his labors. Tafi seeing these strange lights wandering about his
room, began to tremble with fright, and repeated his prayers and
exorcisms, but finding they produced no effect on the apparitions, he
covered his head with the bed clothes, and lay almost petrified with
terror till daylight. When he rose he enquired of Buonamico, if "he had
seen more than a thousand demons wandering about his room, as he had
himself in the night?" Buonamico replied that he had seen nothing, and
wondered he had not been called to work. "Call thee to work!" exclaimed
the master, "I had other things to think of besides painting, and am
resolved to stay in this house no longer;" and away he ran to consult
the parish priest, who seems to have been as superstitious as the poor
painter himself. When Tafi discoursed of this strange affair with
Buonamico, the latter told him that he had been taught to believe that
the demons were the greatest enemies of God, consequently they must be
the most deadly adversaries of painters. "For," said he, "besides that
we always make them most hideous, we think of nothing but painting
saints, both men and women, on walls and pictures, which is much worse,
since we thereby render men better and more devout to the great despite
of the demons; and for all this,