of
Pisa.
Giovanni Boccaccio in his
Decameron and
Franco Sacchetti in his
Il trecentonovelle both describe Buonamico Buffalmacco as being a practical joker. Boccaccio features Buonamico along with his friends and fellow painters
Calandrino and Bruno in several tales
(Day VIII, tales 3, 6, and 9; Day IX, tales 3 and 5). Typically in these stories, Buonamico uses his wits to play tricks on his friends and associates: convincing Calandrino that a stone he possesses (
heliotrope) confers invisibility (VIII, 3), stealing a pig from Calandrino (VIII, 6), convincing the physician Master Simone of an opportunity to
ally himself with the Devil (VIII, 9), convincing Calandrino that he has become pregnant (IX, 3), convincing Calandrino that a particular scroll can cause a woman to fall in love with him (IX, 5). Throughout the stories, Buonamico is frequently depicted at work painting in the houses of notable gentlemen in Florence but eager to take time to eat, drink, and be merry. Italian art historian
Giorgio Vasari included a biography of Buonamico Buffalmacco in his
Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1550–1568), in which he tells several anecdotes about his comic escapades. Vasari tells of Buonamico's youthful tricking of his master Tafi during his apprenticeship, various pranks and tricks that Buonamico played on his
patrons, and his habit of embedding texts within his paintings. Dismissed by Vasari as just another of the witty painter's gags, which his "clumsy" contemporaries had misunderstood and foolishly imitated, the frescoes located in the
Campo Santo of
Pisa are actually scattered with texts, a possible indication of the veracity of Vasari's remark. In the scroll over the cripple beggars in the center of the
Trionfo della Morte ("Triumph of Death"), for instance, it's written: "Since prosperity has completely deserted us, O Death, you who are the medicine for all pain, come to give us our last supper". mounted on fine horses encounter three coffin-encased
corpses in differing stages of
decomposition. Vasari discusses various paintings by the artist which no longer exist, and many of which had already perished by the time of Vasari's writing in the 16th century. He describes a series of paintings at the convent of Faenza in
Florence (already destroyed by the 16th century), works for the abbey of Settimo (now also lost), tempera paintings for the monks of the abbey of Certosa (also in Florence), and frescoes in the Badia at Florence. He describes a series of paintings depicting the life of
Saint Catherine of Siena in a chapel in her honor in
Assisi at the
Basilica of Saint Francis (an attribution rejected by later scholars), and several prominent commissions at various abbeys and convents in
Pisa. Vasari does not attribute the famed Pisan frescoes now associated with Buonamico to the painter, but rather, credits him with four frescoes preserved in the Campo Santo, depicting the
Biblical narrative on the creation of the world through the building of
Noah's Ark, which later scholars have instead attributed to
Piero di Puccio of Orvieto. Vasari further presents conflicting information regarding Buonamico's death, dating it to the year 1340, but also stating that he was still alive in 1351. In any case, he is said to have died at the age of 78, in poverty, and to have been buried at the hospital of
Santa Maria Novella, in Florence. ==Notes==