ceeded perfectly, had not death, which almost always carries olf the most distinguished men just at the moment when they are about to do some good to the world, borne him from his labours before the time.[1]
When Luca della Robbia had thus prematurely departed, there still remained Ottaviano and Agostino, his brothers,[2] who survived him, and to Agostino was born another Luca, who was a most learned man in his day.[3] But first of Agostino himself, respecting whom we have to relate that, devoting himself to art as Luca had done, he decorated the fa$ade of the church of San Bernardino in Perugia, in the year 1461, producing three historical representations in basso-rilievo, with four figures in full relief, admirably executed in a very delicate manner. Beneath this work the artist wrote his name in the following words:—
“augustini florentini lapicidae.”[4]
Of the same family was Andrea—he was, indeed, a nephew of Luca[5]—who also worked in marble with great ability, as may be seen in the chapel of Santa Maria delle Grazie, without the city of Arezzo, where he was commissioned by the commune to execute a vast marble ornament, comprising a large number of minute figures, some in mezzo-rilievo and others in full relief. This was intended as the framework of a Virgin from the hand of Parri di Spinello, the Aretine painter.[6] Andrea likewise prepared the decorations of the chapel belonging to Puccio di Magio, in the church of San Francesco in the same city: a work which is also in terra-cotta. He, moreover, executed the picture of the Circumcision for
- ↑ Luca did not die young, as Vasari intimates, since he is known, from public documents, to have been still living in 1480; and in the first edition of our author he is said to have died in 1430, without doubt a misprint for 1480. See his testament, in Gaye, Carteggio Inedito, etc., i, 185.
- ↑ Neither Ottaviano nor Agostino being mentioned in the fiscal returns made by Simone di Marco della.Robbia, who, according to Vasari, would have been their father, they are not believed to be of his family.
- ↑ The son of Simon di Marco, and born in 1484.
- ↑ See Rumohr, ut supra, ii, 296.
- ↑ For a minute account of this master see Baldinucci, Notizie, &c.
- ↑ The life of Parri di Spinello follows.
the left of the entrance, and is a lunette composed of three portions, representing the Eternal Father in the centre, with an angel on each side, in the attitude of most devout and profound adoration. —Masselli.
