In that word _bonus_ lies the difficulty. Some say it is merely placed in encomium: Gruamons the good master; but it does not seem to me probable that a man would habitually sign his name with a boastful adjective; and habitual it was, because on the white stripes of the architrave of the church of S. Giovanni Evangelista Fuorcivitas he has again signed himself "Gruamons magister bonus fêc hoc opus." Knowing the Italian love of nicknames from the earliest ages, I take it that the architect was really, as Vasari says, Master Bonus or Buono, and that either from a long neck and a stoop, or from his clever use of a crane, he was nicknamed Gruamons, "the crane man,"[187] _grue_ being Italian for both bird and machine. That the Gruamons who carved the Magi on the architrave of S. Andrea was one of the very early Masters, is evident from the mediæval grossness of his work in carving the human figure; that he may very likely be Comacine is suggested by the style and mastery of his _ornamento_ and the life in the figures of his animals. The capitals supporting this architrave are evidently by one of his subordinates; they are very rough, but full of meaning, explaining the mystery of the Annunciation and Conception; below them the signature _Magister enricus mi fecit_. These early sculptures are especially interesting, for they are the first efforts of the Comacines to show Bible events and truths by actual representation instead of by symbols, and so form the link with the development under Niccolò Pisano. Hence the greater want of practice in the human figures, compared to the animals and scrolls, with which the guild had been familiar for ages. [Illustration: CHURCH OF S. ANDREA, PISTOJA. DESIGNED BY GRUAMONS. _See page 235._] It is interesting to compare Gruamons' work with that of the later sculptor of the façade of S. Bartolommeo, and note the rapid progress that art was making towards more perfect and natural form in sculpture. There are only twenty-two years between them, but the sculptor of S. Bartolommeo is far in advance of Gruamons in his representation of the human figure. It is said that Gruamons has left his sign in a portrait of himself on the doorway of S. Andrea, where a curiously negro-like head stands out from the middle of a column. It seems, however, to have acquired its blackness by being used through several centuries as a torch extinguisher at funerals.