FIG. 44. Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi. The Annunciation.—_Uffizi._ ] About the year 1325,[20] we may surmise, Simone was called to Assisi to fresco the Chapel of St. Martin in the Lower Church. He set upon the walls so many fairy tales, tender and sprightly in sentiment, provided with the few essential accessories that a rapid story-teller would need. What more charming than the boy Martin praying while they bind on him the equipment of a knight, Figure 43, and musicians sound a fanfare! What more gallant than the lad setting out on crusade against the Teutons who lurk in a cleft of the background! This gracious childlike quality, quite akin to the tender phase of Duccio, is exceptional in Simone, who habitually is the strenuous decorator. His sparse and austere methods appear clearly in the commemorative fresco of Guidoriccio, hired general of Siena, and conqueror of Sassoforte. It is in the Palazzo Pubblico and duly dated 1328. Nothing is realistic but the horse and rider. They are isolated, hold alone a field made up of pure symbols for camps, and fortresses and craggy hill-tops, yet the martial effect is unmistakable and the composition most quaintly impressive. The quintessence of Simone’s later art is in the famous Annunciation of the Uffizi, Figure 44. In order to justify the most nervously exquisite of linear arrangements he has chosen the least significant moment of the event. His Virgin is merely a sullen princess resenting an intrusion; the Gabriel, an etherialized courtier pleading a cause with apologies. But the contrast of the advancing and shrinking motives gave Simone precisely what he wanted. He builds up areas richly colored or brocaded, bounded by sharp curves, relieved by flutters and spirals of flying drapery, and accentuated by such details as the olive twigs and the lily which have the crisp incisiveness of finest metal work. As a triumph of pure decoration Gothic painting has nothing better to show than this lovely panel which was finished in 1333 for the chapel of Sant’ Ansano at Siena. It has little quality of heart in it, and no reverence save that of consummate workmanship.