Simone Memmi of Siena then was an excellent painter, remarkable in his own day and much esteemed at the Pope's court, because, after the death of his master Giotto, whom he had followed to Rome when he did the _Navicella_ in mosaic, and other things, he had imitated his master's style in making a Virgin Mary in the porch of St Peter's, and a St Peter and a St Paul in that place near where the bronze pine apple is, in a wall between the arches of the portico, on the outside. For this style he was praised, especially as he had introduced into the work a portrait of a sacristan of St Peter's lighting some lamps, and has made his figures very vigorous. This led to Simone being summoned very urgently to the Pope's court at Avignon, where he executed so many pictures in fresco and on panels that his works realised the fame which had preceded him thither. Returning to Siena in great credit and high in favour, he was employed by the Signoria to paint in fresco a Virgin Mary, with many figures about her in a chamber in their palace. He completed this with every perfection, to his great glory and advantage. In order to show that he was no less skilful in painting on panels than in fresco, he executed a panel in that palace, for which reason he was afterwards commissioned to do two in the Duomo and a Madonna with the child in her arms in a most beautiful attitude, above the door of the opera of that building. In this picture some angels which are holding up a standard in the air, are flying and looking down on saints below them, who are surrounding Our Lady, forming a very beautiful and decorative composition. That done, Simone was invited to Florence by the general of St Augustine and did the chapter-house in S. Spirito, showing remarkable invention and judgment in the figures and horses, as may be believed on seeing the story of the Passion of Christ, remarkable alike for the ingenuity, discretion, and exquisite grace displayed by the artist. The thieves on the cross are seen in the act of expiring, the soul of the good one being carried with rejoicing to heaven by angels, while that of the guilty one is roughly dragged down by devils to hell. Simone has also shown originality and judgment in the disposition and bitter weeping of some angels about the cross. But most remarkable of all is the way in which the spirits cleave the air with their shoulders, because they maintain the movement of their flight while turning in a circle. This work would supply much clearer evidence of Simone's excellence if, in addition to the ravages of time, it had not been further damaged in the year 1560, through the fathers who, not being able to use the chapter-house on account of the damp, and throwing down the little that remained of the paintings of this man, in replacing a worm-eaten floor by vaulting. About the same time Simone painted in tempera on a panel Our Lady and a St Luke with other saints, which is to-day in the chapel of the Gondi in S.