employed with his brother David in the Library of the Vatican. No trace of their work is now in existence, but Ghirlandajo made good use of his spare time and took careful drawings of temples, pyramids, and other classical remains which he afterwards introduced in his works. In 1476, the brothers returned to Florence, and painted a Last Supper in a Vallombrosan monastery at Passignano, the wealthiest religious house in Tuscany. Here the coarse fare which the monks supplied their guests excited the wrath of David to such a pitch that this hot-headed youth rose from table, flung the soup over the brother who had prepared the meal, and seizing a big loaf of bread, struck him so violently, that the poor monk was carried to his cell more dead than alive. The abbot, who had gone to bed, was roused from sleep by the clamour, and hurried to the parlour, thinking the roof had fallen in, only to be greeted with a torrent of abuse from David, who told him that his brother was worth more than all the pigs of abbots who had ever ruled over the Abbey!
Before this visit to Rome, probably in 1474 or early in 1475, Ghirlandajo painted one of his most attractive works, the frescoes of the Chapel of Santa Fina, in the Collegiate Church of San Gimignano. The virgin Saint, who suffered all her life from incurable disease, but brought the people of San Gimignano untold blessings by her prayers and sanctity, is represented lying on her death-bed and consoled by St. Gregory, who appears to her in a vision. All the details of the humble home—the kitchen table with its brass plates, glass jugs and ripe pomegranates, the window looking out
