vestments of the fashion of that clay, are very beautiful; and among the figures are portraits of Paolo Orsino, Ottobuono da Parma, Luca da Canale, and Carlo Malatesti, lord of Rimini, all great captains of those times.[1] These pictures had suffered injury in certain parts, and have been restored, in our own day, by Giuliano Bugiardini, from whom they have received injury rather than benefit.
Paolo Uccello was induced by Donato to visit Padua, when the last-named artist was working in that city; he then painted certain gigantic figures in “terra-'verde”, for the entrance to the house of the Vitali family; and these, as I find in a Latin letter written by Girolamo Campagnolo to the philosopher Leonico Tomeo, are so admirably done, that Andrea Montegna is said to have held them in the highest estimation. Paolo also decorated the arch of the Peruzzi with triangles in fresco, painting rectangular sections, moreover, in the corners, within each of which he placed one of the four elements, accompanied by an appropriate animal. To the earth, for example, he gave a mole, to the water a fish, to the fire a salamander, and to the air a chameleon, which lives on the air, and can take every colour. But as he had never seen a chameleon, he painted a camel, which he has made with wide open mouth, swallowing the air, wherewith he fills his belly.[2] And herein was his simplicity certainly very great: taking the mere resemblance of the camel’s name as a sufficient representation of, or allusion to, an animal which is like a little dry lizard, while the camel is a great ungainly beast. The labours of Paolo, in painting, must have been very heavy, since he made so many drawings, that he left whole chests full of them to his relations, as I have learned from themselves. But, although it is a great thing to produce many sketches, it is a still greater to
- ↑ Of these four pictures, one only was known to exist—that, namely, which is preserved in the Royal Gallery of the Uffizj (Florence), and which is authenticated by the name of the painter written below, in the right hand corner, PAOLI VCCELI. OPUS. The fate of the remaining three was unknown until the year 1848, when it was our good fortune to discover two of them, one of which is in admirable preservation, and to point them out to the Signors Francesco Lombardi and Ugo Baldi, who have enriched their precious collection, before mentioned, with this discovery. It is suspected that the fourth has been taken to England. —Ed. Flor. 1849.
- ↑ These works have totally perished.—Ed. Flor. 1832.
