as masterpieces styling themselves simply “stone-cutters.”  The contract is a long document, consisting of twenty-one clauses, the greater number of which are occupied with the most minute and detailed specification of the work to be done.  It is to be executed “according to the model made by the said Bino, changing it or keeping it as it is according to the will of the fathers” (the monks of St. Peter’s), “so as not to change the form and substance of the model.”  The prices agreed to be paid for each stall in the choir, with its arch above it, is ten golden ducats, which, allowing for the change in the value of the precious metals, may be considered to be about equal to three hundred and seventy-five dollars at the present day.  The price does not seem by any means a small one.  But Signor Rossi’s researches have elsewhere shown that it is a mistake to suppose that the renowned professors of any branch of art were poorly paid in those days.  The very reverse was the case.  It would not be interesting to the reader to give him the details of the work which Maestro Bino bound himself to execute, but some of the stipulations must be mentioned, because they curiously illustrate the life of the times.  The convent is to furnish all the wood—­that which is required for the work itself, as well as all that may be needed, planks, scaffolding and the like, for the putting of it in its place. “Item. We give him rooms to work in and to sleep in and to cook in, as well as beds furnished with bedclothes. Item. Maestro Bino binds himself not to undertake any other work till the choir is wholly finished and put up, and he engages to do all the work within the walls of the convent.  He is bound to keep four men at work under him, and more if necessary.”  The work is to be completed within two years should no impediment intervene by death or grave and manifest illness.  The convent undertakes to furnish money from time to time as needed for the pay of the journeymen, and fifty ducats beforehand for the hiring of assistants and other necessary expenses.

Maestro Bino went to work at once, and on the 15th of that same April had from the convent what seems the very large sum of ten florins and eight soldi for glue.  But, after all, this Maestro Bernardino di Luca was not the author of the exquisite carvings which people go to Perugia to look at at the present day.  A very “grave and manifest infirmity” did intervene to prevent the execution of the work, for on the 19th of the following August, Maestro Bino discharged his workmen on account of the plague, which had begun to devastate Perugia; and there is reason to think that the maestro himself perished by it, for after that last entry the name of Bernardino di Luca vanishes into the abyss of darkness, and is no more heard of, and shortly afterward we find the convent entering into a new bargain with another maestro for the execution of the work.  This was Maestro Stefano de Antoniolo da Zambelli of Bergamo, who agreed with