What trouble his mother must have had with
him when he was a boy! It was no use sending
him on an errand, he would forget it before he had
gone a hundred yards, and he was so careless and
untidy that it was enough to make any one lose
patience with him. But only let him have a pencil
and a smooth surface on which to draw, and he was
a different boy.

It is said that even now, in the little town of
Castello San Giovanni, some eighteen miles from
Florence, where Tommaso was born, there are still
some wonderfully good figures to be seen, drawn
by him when he was quite a little boy. Certainly
there was no carelessness and nothing untidy about
his work.

As the boy grew older all his longings would
turn towards Florence, the beautiful city where
there was everything to learn and to see, and so he
was sent to become a pupil in the studio of Masolino,
a great Florentine painter. But though his drawings
improved, his careless habits continued the
same.

`There goes Tommaso the painter,' the people
would say, watching the big awkward figure passing
through the streets on his way to work. `Truly
he pays but little heed to his appearance. Look
but at his untidy hair and the holes in his boots.'