Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 05 (of 10): Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo LottoVasari, Giorgio
History
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 05 (of 10): Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto
Vasari, Giorgio
Art, Italian; Artists -- Italy -- Biography
But the Warden Bastiano, perceiving the slowness of the man, and wishing
to bring the work to an end, allotted the three other panels to Giorgio
Vasari of Arezzo, who finished two of them, those that are beside the
door of the facade. In the one nearer the Campo Santo is Our Lady with
the Child in her arms, with S. Martha caressing Him. There, also, on
their knees, are S. Cecilia, S. Augustine, S. Joseph, and S. Guido the
Hermit, and in the foreground a nude S. Jerome, with S. Luke the
Evangelist, and some little boys uplifting a piece of drapery, and
others holding flowers. In the other, by the wish of the Warden, he
painted another Madonna with her Son in her arms, S. James the Martyr,
S. Matthew, S. Sylvester the Pope, and S. Turpe the Chevalier. Having to
paint the Madonna, and not wishing to repeat the same composition
(although he had varied it much in other respects), he made her with
Christ dead in her arms, and those saints as it were round a Deposition
from the Cross; and on the crosses, planted on high and made of
tree-trunks, are fixed two naked Thieves, surrounded by horses and
ministers of the crucifixion, with Joseph, Nicodemus, and the Maries;
all for the satisfaction of the Warden, who wished that in those new
pictures there should be included all the saints that there had been in
the past in the various dismantled chapels, in order to renew their
memory in the new works. One picture was still wanting to complete the
whole, and this was executed by Bronzino, who painted a nude Christ and
eight saints. And in this manner were those chapels brought to
completion, all of which Giovanni Antonio could have done with his own
hand if he had not been so slow.
And since Sogliani had won much favour with the Pisans, after the death
of Andrea del Sarto he was commissioned to finish a panel for the
Company of S. Francesco, which the said Andrea left only sketched; which
panel is now in the building of that Company on the Piazza di S.
Francesco at Pisa. The same master executed some rows of cloth-hangings
for the Wardens of Works of the aforesaid Duomo, and many others in
Florence, because he took pleasure in doing that sort of work, and above
all in company with his friend Tommaso di Stefano, a painter of
Florence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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