Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 03 (of 10): Filarete and Simone to MantegnaVasari, Giorgio
History
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 03 (of 10): Filarete and Simone to Mantegna
Vasari, Giorgio
Art, Italian; Artists -- Italy -- Biography
In the said book, then, the figure of Silius has on the head a helmet
with a crest of gold and a chaplet of laurel; he is wearing a blue
cuirass picked out with gold in the ancient manner, while he is holding
a book in his right hand, and the left he has on a short sword. Over the
cuirass he has a red chlamys, fastened in front with a knot, and fringed
with gold, which hangs down from his shoulders. The inside of this
chlamys is seen to be of changing colours and embroidered with gold. His
buskins are yellow, and he is standing on his right foot in a niche. The
next figure in this work represents Scipio Africanus. He is wearing a
yellow cuirass, and his sword-belt and sleeves, which are blue in
colour, are all embroidered with gold. On his head he has a helmet with
two little wings and a fish by way of crest. The young man's countenance
is fair and very beautiful; and he is raising his right arm proudly,
holding in that hand a naked sword, while in the left hand he has the
scabbard, which is red and embroidered with gold. The hose are green in
colour and plain; and the chlamys, which is blue, has a red lining with
a fringe of gold all round, and it is fastened at the throat, leaving
the front quite open, and falling behind with beautiful grace. This
young man, who stands in a niche of mixed green and grey marble, with
blue buskins embroidered with gold, is looking with indescribable
fierceness at Hannibal, who faces him on the opposite page of the book.
This figure of Hannibal is that of a man about thirty-six years of age;
he is frowning, with two furrows in his brow expressive of impatience
and anger, and he, too, is looking fixedly at Scipio. On his head he has
a yellow helmet, with a green and yellow dragon for crest and a serpent
for chaplet. He is standing on his left foot and raising his right arm,
with which he holds the shaft of an ancient javelin, or rather, of a
little partisan. His cuirass is blue, his sword-belt partly blue and
partly yellow, his sleeves of changing blue and red, and his buskins
yellow. His chlamys, of changing red and yellow, is fastened on the
right shoulder and lined with green; and, holding his left hand on his
sword, he is standing in a niche of varicoloured marbles, yellow, white,
and changing. On another page is Pope Nicholas V, portrayed from the
life, with a mantle of changing purple and red and all embroidered with
gold. He is without a beard and in full profile, and he is looking
towards the beginning of the book, which is opposite to him; and he is
pointing to it with his right hand, as though in a marvel. The niche is
green, white, and red. Then in the border there are certain little
half-length figures in an ornament composed of ovals and circles, and
other things of that kind, together with an infinite number of little
birds and children, so well wrought that nothing more could be desired.
Close to this, in like manner, are Hanno the Carthaginian, Hasdrubal,
Laelius, Massinissa, C.
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