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
Of this man, some say that he came from Settignano, a place two miles
distant from Florence, while certain others hold him to be a Florentine;
but this matters nothing, the distance between the one place and the
other being so small. He was an imitator of the manner of Donato,
although he had a natural gift of imparting very great grace and
loveliness to his heads; and in the expressions of his women and
children there is seen a delicate, sweet, and charming manner, produced
as much by nature, which had inclined him to this, as by the zeal with
which he had practised his intelligence in the art. In his youth he
wrought the base of Donato's David, which is in the Duke's Palace in
Florence, making on it in marble certain very beautiful harpies, and
some vine-tendrils in bronze, very graceful and well conceived. On the
facade of the house of the Gianfigliazzi he made a large and very
beautiful coat of arms, with a lion; besides other works in stone, which
are in the same city. For the Chapel of the Brancacci in the Carmine he
made an angel of wood; and he finished with marble the Chapel of the
Sacrament in S. Lorenzo, carrying it to complete perfection with much
diligence. There was in it a child of marble in the round, which was
removed and is now set up on the altar at the festivals of the Nativity
of Christ, as an admirable work; and in place of this Baccio da
Montelupo made another, also of marble, which stands permanently over
the Tabernacle of the Sacrament. In S. Maria Novella he made a marble
tomb for the Blessed Villana, with certain graceful little angels, and
portrayed her there from nature in such a manner that she appears not
dead but asleep; and for the Nuns of the Murate he wrought a little
Madonna with a lovely and graceful manner, in a tabernacle standing on a
column; insomuch that both these works are very highly esteemed and very
greatly prized. In S. Pietro Maggiore, also, he made the Tabernacle of
the Sacrament in marble with his usual diligence; and although there are
no figures in this work, yet it shows a beautiful manner and infinite
grace, like his other works. And he portrayed from the life, likewise in
marble, the head of Marietta degli Strozzi, who was so beautiful that
the work turned out very excellent.
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