Chap. XV. BUFFALMACCO. 387 CHAPTER XV. BUFFALMACCO. — THE CAMPO SANTO OF PISA. It is usual to find amongst men who work in common and who form a company in any given society, one or two who are the merry-andrews of the community, and at least one who is the butt of all the rest. Such, amongst the painters of the fourteenth century at Florence, were Buonamico Christofani called Buffalmacco, 1 Bruno Gio vanni, 2 and Nozzo called Calandrino. 3 Calandrino, the butt, was an older man than his tormentors, a bad hus band, avaricious, credulous, and a fool. It is impossible not to laugh at the practical jokes successfully played off upon him; how he is induced to believe in and, then to' search for, a stone which has the property of making the possessor invisible; how Buffalmacco and Bruno having encouraged him to load his dress with all manner of rubble picked up on a road outside Florence, induce him to think that he has found the treasure of which he was in search by pretending suddenly to miss him; and, ha ving loaded themselves with stones, curse his luck and pelt him mercilessly home. It is ludicrous to read how 1 The existence of Buffalmacco 1 has been denied. See Eumohr, Forschungen. Vol. II. note to p. 14. But his name appears in the form given in the text in the register of the Florentine Com pany of painters in 1351. Gua- landi. Ser. 6. ub. sup. p. 178. 2 This painter is inscribed on the register of Florentine painters as Bruno Giovanni pop. S. Si mone dipintore, MCCCL. (Gua- landi. ub. sup. p. 177), and is found mentioned by Baldinucci in a contract of 1301. Op ere, ub. sup. Vol. IV. p. 296. 3 His name appears in Floren tine records: “1301. Nozzus voca- tus Calandrinus pictor quondam Perini pop. S. Laurentii testis.” SeeBaldinucci. ub. sup. p. 200. 25*