propriate reward of Berna’s conscientious labours, celebrating him with their pens who had done them honour by his pictures. Giovanni of Asciano,[1] a scholar of Berna, completed the work thus left unfinished.[2] The same artist executed certain paintings in the hospital of Siena, with others in the ancient palace of the Medici, from which he acquired some reputation.[3] The Sienese painter, Berna, laboured about the year 1381. In addition to what I have said of him, he deserves to be lauded and held in honour by all artists, as having been the first who began to depict animals well. A specimen of his talents in this way, may be seen in a sketch filled with wild beasts from different regions, and preserved in our book. His drawings, generally, are of considerable merit. The Sienese painter Luca di Tome, was also a disciple of Berna. This Luca painted many pictures in Siena and throughout Tuscany, more particularly the chapel of the Dragomanni family, in the church of San Domenico, in Arezzo, with its altar-piece. The chapel, which is of Gothic architecture, was indeed admirably adorned by this picture, and the frescoes which Luca the Sienese, with great judgment and ability, executed therein.[4]
- ↑ A castle in the Sienese territory. —Montani.
- ↑ Baldinucci places this deplorable event in the year 1380. The first
edition of Vasari gives the following epitaph, as written on Berna; but
the Florentine commentators remark, that it is obviously of a later period:
“ Bernardo Senensi pictori in primis illustri, qui dum naturam di/igentius imitatur, quam vitae, suce consulit, de tabulato considens diem suum obiit. Geminianenses hominis de se optime meriti vicem dolentes poss.” - ↑ The works of Giovanni of Asciano are believed to be all lost.
- ↑ The Livornese edition, published about 1760, and quoted by Ludwig Schorn, declares these works to be still existing. The Florentine editors of 1846, assigning the last Guida di Arezzo as their authority, inform us that the picture has long been lost, but say that a part of the frescoes still remains.
