Among other things, in a scene where St Jerome is receiving his earliest instruction, he represented a master who has caused one boy to mount upon the back of another and strikes him with the whip in such a manner that the poor child is twisting his legs with pain and appears to be crying out and trying to bite the ear of the boy who is holding him. The whole is executed with much grace and lightness, and Gherardo appears to have delighted in these touches of nature. In like manner, when St Jerome, being at the point of death, is making his will, he has hit off some friars in a delightful and realistic manner, for some are writing, others listening attentively and looking about, observing all the words of their master with great earnestness. This work won Stamina much fame and a high rank among artists, and his courteous and mild manners gave him a great reputation, so that his name was famous throughout Tuscany and indeed in all Italy. Being at this time invited to Pisa to paint the chapter-house of S. Niccola in that city, he sent in his place Antonio Vite of Pistoia, because he did not wish to leave Florence. Antonio, who had learned Stamina's style under him, did the Passion of Jesus Christ there, completing it in its present form in the year 1403, to the great delight of the Pisans. Afterwards, it is said, he finished the chapel of the Pugliesi; and as the works which he did there at S. Girolamo greatly pleased the Florentines, because he had expressed in a lively manner many gestures and attitudes which had not been attempted by any painters before his time, the Commune of Florence in the year that Gabriel Maria, lord of Pisa, sold that city to the Florentines for 200,000 scudi (after Giovanni Gambacorta had stood a siege of thirteen months, although even he at length agreed to the sale), employed Stamina to paint on a wall of the Palazzo di parte Guelfa, St Denis the bishop, with two angels, and below it an accurate representation of the city of Pisa. In the execution of this he displayed such diligence in every detail, especially in the colouring in fresco, that notwithstanding the action of air and water and a northern aspect, the picture has always remained in excellent condition, and even now it has all the appearance of having been newly painted, an achievement worthy of high praise. Gherardo having by this and other works acquired a great reputation and much renown both at home and abroad, death, the envious enemy of virtuous deeds, cut off at the height of his powers the great promise of much better things than the world had yet seen from him; and having come to his end unexpectedly in the forty-ninth year of his age, he was buried with much pomp in the church of S. Jacopo sopra Arno. The pupils of Gherardo were Masolino da Panicale, who was at first an excellent goldsmith and then a painter, and some others whom it is not necessary to mention, as they did not possess any remarkable talent.