high altar the scene that was to outshine all the others in brilliancy.
For it was his intent therein to glorify the leader of the hosts of
Heaven for the victory he won before the beginning of time. Accordingly
Spinello represented St. Michael fighting in the air against the serpent
with seven heads and ten horns, and he figured with delight, in the
bottom part of the picture, the Prince of the Devils, Lucifer, under the
semblance of an appalling monster. The figures seemed to grow to life of
themselves under his hand. His success was beyond his fondest hopes; so
hideous was the countenance of Lucifer, none could escape the nightmare
of its foulness. The face haunted the painter in the streets and even
went home with him to his lodging.

Presently when night was come, Spinello lay-down in his bed beside his
wife and fell asleep. In his slumbers he saw an Angel as comely as St.
Michael, but black; and the Angel said to him:

"Spinello, I am Lucifer. Tell me, where had you seen me, that you should
paint me as you have, under so ignominious a likeness?"

The old painter answered trembling, that he had never seen him with his
eyes, never having gone down alive into Hell, like Messer Dante
Alighieri; but that, in depicting him as he had done, he was for
expressing in visible lines and colours the hideousness of sin.

Lucifer shrugged his shoulders, and the hill of San Gemignano seemed of
a sudden to heave and stagger.

"Spinello," he went on, "will you do me the pleasure to reason awhile
with me? I am no mean Logician; He you pray to knows that."