Buffalmacco is generally considered the inventor of label painting, or
the use of a label drawn from the mouth to represent it speaking; but it
was practiced by Cimabue, and probably long before his time, in Italy.
Pliny tells us that it was practiced by the early Greek painters.
Vasari says that Buffalmacco was invited to Pisa, where he painted many
pictures in the Abbey of St. Paul, on the banks of the Arno, which then
belonged to the monks of Vallambrosa. He covered the entire surface of
the church, from the roof to the floor, with histories from the Old
Testament, beginning with the creation of man and continuing to the
building of the Tower of Babel. In the church of St. Anastasia, he also
painted certain stories from the life of that saint, "in which," says
Vasari, "are very many beautiful costumes and head-dresses of women,
painted with a charming grace of manner." Bruno de Giovanni, the friend
and pupil of Buonamico, was associated with him in this work. He too, is
celebrated by Boccaccio, as a man of joyous memory. When the stories on
the façade were finished, Bruno painted in the same church, an
altar-piece of St. Ursula, with her company of virgins. In one hand of
the saint, he placed a standard bearing the arms of Pisa--a white cross
on a field of red; the other is extended towards a woman, who, climbing
between two rocks, has one foot in the sea, and stretches out both hands
towards the saint, in the act of supplication. This female form
represents Pisa. She bears a golden horn upon her head, and wears a
mantle sprinkled over with circlets and eagles. Being hard pressed by
the waves, she earnestly implores succor of the saint.
While employed on this work, Bruno complained that his faces had not
the life and expression which distinguished those of Buonamico, when the
latter, in his playful manner, advised him to paint words proceeding
from the mouth of the woman supplicating the saint, and in like manner
those proceeding from the saint in reply. "This," said the wag, "will
make your figures not only life-like, but even eloquently expressive."
Bruno followed this advice; "And this method," says Vasari, "as it
pleased Bruno and other dull people of that day, so does it equally
satisfy certain simpletons of our own, who are well served by artists as
commonplace as themselves. It must, in truth, be allowed to be an
extraordinary thing that a practice thus originating in jest, and in no
other way, should have passed into general use; insomuch that even a
great part of the Campo Santo, decorated by much esteemed masters, is
full of this absurdity." This picture is now in the Academy of the Fine
Arts at Pisa.