Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/195

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andrea del sarto.
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horror. Among these is a woman wild with the terror caused bj the sound of the thunder, and rushing along with so natural and life-like a movement, that she seems to be indeed alive. A horse, having torn himself loose in his flight, betrays the terror he feels at the outcries around him, by rearing aloft, and in all his movements gives evidence of the effect produced by the unexpected disturbance. The whole work, in short, proves the forethought with which Andrea considered all that the various circumstances of such an event as he was depicting required, and gives testimony of a care and diligence which is certainly most commendable, as well as needful to him who would exercise the art of painting. In the third of these pictures San Filippo delivers a woman from evil spirits, and this also is delienated with all those considerations which can be imagined as proper to the due representation of such an event; wherefore all these pictures obtained for Andrea very great honour and fame.

Encouraged by the praise he received, the artist continued his work, and in the same cloister he painted two other pictures.[1] In one, San Filippo is seen lying dead, with the brethren of his order weeping around him; there is also a child, who having been dead, has been restored to life by touching the bier whereon the body of the saint is laid. The boy is first seen dead, and then resuscitated and restored to life, being painted in each case with much thought, and represented in a manner that could not be more truthful and natural than it is. In the last picture on that side, our artist depicted certain monks who are laying the vestments of San Filippo on the heads of some children, and in this work Andrea has given the portrait of the sculptor Andrea della Eobbia, represented as an old man clothed in red and much bent; he bears a staff in his hand.[2] In the same picture is also the portrait of Luca,[3] son of the above-named Andrea della Robbia, and in the painting of the death of San

  1. The two pictures here described are in excellent preservation; the first is much admired for the beauty of its colouring, the second is equally distinguished for that of the composition.— Förster.
  2. This work has been engraved by Chiari, by Tommasino, and by Scotto. The reader will find a good account of nearly all the engravings from the works of Andrea, in Biadi, Notizie inedite, &c.
  3. This is Luca the younger, who executed the pavements of the Papal Loggie, as we have noticed in the Life of Luca della Robbia. See vol. i.