Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 08 (of 10): Bastiano to Taddeo ZuccheroVasari, Giorgio
History
Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 08 (of 10): Bastiano to Taddeo Zucchero
Vasari, Giorgio
Art, Italian; Artists -- Italy -- Biography
"In the last spandrel, between the facade at the head and that on the
left, it will be well to place Angerona, the Goddess of Secrecy, which
figure, coming within the same door of entrance, will admonish those
who come out of the chamber to keep secret all that they have seen and
heard, as is the duty of the servants of noblemen. The figure is that
of a woman placed upon an altar, with the mouth bound and sealed. I
know not with what vestments she used to be depicted, but I would
envelop her in a long gown covering her whole person, and would
represent her as shrugging her shoulders. Around her there must be
painted some priests, by whom sacrifices used to be offered to her
before the gate in the Curia, to the end that it might be unlawful for
any person to reveal to the prejudice of the Republic any matter that
might be discussed there.
"The space within the spandrels being filled up, it now only remains
to say that around all this work it seems to me that there should be a
frieze to encircle it on every side, and in this I would make either
grotesques or small scenes with little figures. The matter of these I
would have in harmony with the subjects already given above, each in
accord with that nearest to it; and if you paint little scenes, it
would please me to have them representing the actions that men and
also animals do at the hour that we have fixed there. Now, beginning
at the head, I would paint in the frieze of that facade, as things
appropriate to the Dawn, artisans, workmen, and persons of various
kinds who, having risen, are returning to the labours of their
pursuits--as smiths to the forge, men of letters to their studies,
huntsmen to the open country, and muleteers to the road, and above
all would I like to have the poor old woman from Petrarca rising from
her spinning and lighting the fire, with her feet bare and her clothes
dishevelled. And if you think fit to make grotesques of animals there,
make them of birds singing, geese going forth to their pasture, cocks
announcing the day, and similar fancies. In the frieze on the facade
at the foot, in accord with the darkness there, I would make persons
going fowling by night, spies, adulterers, climbers of windows, and
other suchlike things; and for grotesques, porcupines, hedgehogs,
badgers, a peacock with the tail spread, signifying the night of
stars, owls large and small, bats, and suchlike animals. In the frieze
on the right-hand facade you must paint things in keeping with the
Moon, such as fishers of the night, mariners navigating with the
compass, necromancers, witches, and the like; for grotesques, a
beacon-tower in the distance, nets, weir-baskets with some fishes in
them, crabs feeding by the light of the moon, and, if there be space
enough, an elephant kneeling in adoration of her. And, finally, in the
frieze on the left-hand facade, mathematicians with their instruments
for measuring, thieves, false-coiners, robbers of buried treasure,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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