The artist has represented Virgil sitting in the attitude of writing, and with his eyes raised to heaven, invoking the favour of the Muses. Æneas is before him in the garb and with the demeanour of a warrior, and, pointing with his sword, intimates the subject of the Æneid. The Bucolics are represented by a shepherd, and the Georgics by a husbandman; both of whom are on a lower foreground of the piece, and appear listening to the strain. Servius, in the mean time, appears drawing aside a veil of great delicacy and transparency, to intimate that his readings unveil what would otherwise have remained obscure and doubtful to the reader of that divine poet. An account of this picture is contained in a letter of the secretary Ab. Carlo Bianconi,[266] where the author praises the originality of the idea, the colouring and harmony of the picture, the propriety and variety in the costume according with the subject. He also remarks a little rudeness in the design, more of truth than of beauty in the heads, and the largeness of the hands; that usually, indeed, were the characteristics of every school at this period. Simone had a relation named Lippo Memmi, whom he himself instructed in the art. Although he was not equal in genius to Simone, he succeeded admirably in imitating his manner, and, aided by his designs, produced pictures that might have passed for the work of the former, had he not inscribed them with his name. When he wrought without such assistance there is a manifest mediocrity in his invention and design; but he is still a good colourist. A picture executed by them both is preserved in S. Ansano di Castelvecchio of Siena.[267] In Ancona, Assisi, and other places, pictures existed that were begun by the former, and finished by the latter. There is a picture wholly the work of Lippo in Siena; and the author of the Description of Pisa records one at the church of S. Paul in that place, which is not without merit. In my first edition, implicitly following the writers of chronicles, I mentioned a Cecco di Martino as the brother of Simone. But on considering that he flourished about 1380, and that there was a less celebrated Simon Martino, in Siena, about 1350, mentioned by Cittadini, I do not judge it right to follow their authority.