way beneath the weight of the multitudes who had crowded upon it to see the spectacle. Many lives were lost; and Buffalmacco himself escaped only because, at the very moment when the bridge fell on the machinery intended to represent hell in boats on the Arno, he had gone from the place to purchase certain articles required for the show.[1]
No long time after these events, Buonamico proceeded to Pisa, where he painted many pictures in the abbey of St. Paul, on the shore of the Arno, which then belonged to the monks of Vallombrosa. He covered the entire surface of the church, from the roof to the floor, with stories from the Old Testament, beginning with the creation of man, and continuing to the building of the tower of Babel. In this work, although now for the most part destroyed, we yet perceive much animation in the figures, with good colouring and clever treatment; the whole proves that the hand of Buonamico could well express the conceptions of his mind, but does not evince much power of design. On the wall of the south transept, and opposite to that wherein is the side-door, in certain stories from the life of St. Anastasia, are many very beautiful costumes and head-dresses of women, which are painted with a charming grace of manner. No less beautiful are some other figures, in various and striking attitudes, in a boat; among these is a portrait of Alexander VI,[2] which Buonamico is reported to have received from his master Tafi, who had executed the likeness of that pontiff in mosaic for the church of San Pietro. In the last of these stories, moreover, wherein the martyrdom of St. Anastasia and others is depicted, Buonamico has admirably pourtrayed the fear of death in some of the faces, with the grief and terror of those who stand around, beholding the torments and death of the saint, as she is fixed to the stake and sus~ pended over the fire. The painter Bruno di Giovanni,[3] so called in the old book of the Company of Painters, was
- ↑ See Villani (lib. viii. cap. 70), for a minute account of this festival, which ended in a tragedy that cost many lives.—Rom. Ed.
- ↑ Alexander VI reigned from 1254 to 1261. Vasari tells us, in the life of Tafi, page 82, that Buffalmacco received the portraits of the popes Celestine IV and Innocent IV, but does not mention that of Alexander.
- ↑ Few traces now remain of the frescoes painted by Buffalmacco and Bruno, in the church of San Paolo a Pupa d’Arno, in Pisa.
