Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 02 (of 10): Berna to Michelozzo MichelozziVasari, Giorgio
History
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 02 (of 10): Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi
Vasari, Giorgio
Art, Italian; Artists -- Italy -- Biography
After this, desiring to revisit his own country, Jacopo returned to
Siena, where, on his arrival, there came to him, according to his
desire, an occasion to leave therein some honourable memorial of
himself. For the Signoria of Siena, having resolved to make a very rich
adornment in marble for the waters that Agostino and Agnolo of Siena had
brought into the square in the year 1343, allotted that work to Jacopo,
at the price of 2,200 crowns of gold; wherefore he, having made the
model and collected the marbles, put his hand to the work and finally
completed it so greatly to the satisfaction of his fellow-citizens, that
he was ever afterwards called, not Jacopo della Quercia, but Jacopo
della Fonte. In the middle of this work, then, he carved the Glorious
Virgin Mary, the particular Patroness of that city, a little larger than
the other figures, and in a manner both gracious and singular. Round
her, next, he made the seven Theological Virtues, the heads of which are
delicate, pleasing, beautiful in expression, and wrought with certain
methods which show that he began to discover the good and the secrets of
the arts, and to give grace to the marble, sweeping away that ancient
manner which had been used up to that time by the sculptors, who made
their figures rigid and without the least grace in the world; whereas
Jacopo made them as soft as flesh, giving finish to his marble with
patience and delicacy. Besides this, he made there some stories from the
Old Testament--namely, the Creation of our first parents, and the eating
of the forbidden fruit, wherein, in the figure of the woman, there is
seen an expression of countenance so beautiful, with a grace and an
attitude so deferential towards Adam as she offers him the apple, that
it appears impossible for him to refuse it; to say nothing of the
remainder of the work, which is all full of most beautiful ideas, and
adorned with most beautiful children and other ornaments in the shape of
lions and she-wolves, emblems of the city, all executed by Jacopo with
love, mastery, and judgment in the space of twelve years. By his hand,
likewise, are three very beautiful scenes in half-relief from the life
of S. John the Baptist, wrought in bronze, which are round the baptismal
font of S. Giovanni, below the Duomo; and also some figures in the
round, likewise in bronze, one braccio in height, which are between each
of the said scenes, and are truly beautiful and worthy of praise.
Wherefore, by reason of these works, which showed his excellence, and of
the goodness and uprightness of his life, Jacopo was deservedly made
chevalier by the Signoria of Siena, and, shortly afterwards, Warden of
Works of the Duomo; which office he filled so well that neither before
nor since were these Works better directed, for, although he did not
live more than three years after undertaking this charge, he made many
useful and honourable improvements in that Duomo. And although Jacopo
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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