Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/286

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lives of the artists.

to the Order of the Knights of Jerusalem, was ultimately destroyed; when the picture above described was placed by order of the Signor Duke Cosimo in a chapel which belongs to the Medici family in the church of San Lorenzo, he considering it to be a work which may be accounted among the best of those performed by Sogliani.[1]

Ey the same master is a Last Supper, painted in oil for the nuns of the Crocetta; this also was highly extolled at the time. So2;liani likewise decorated a Tabernacle in Fresco for Taddeo Taddei; this is in the Via de’ Ginori, and exhibits a Crucifix, with Our Lady and San Giovanni at the foot thereof, and Angels in the air above, who are weeping with an expression of deep sorrow. It has been deservedly commended, and is very well executed for a work in fresco,[2] There is another Crucifix by this master in the refectory of the Abbey of the Black Friars at Florence; angels are flying around this also, and the grief they suffer is expressed with much grace; beneath is Our Lady, with San Giovanni, San Benedetto, Santa Scholastica, and other figures.[3] For the nuns of the Spirito Santo, whose abode is on the ascent of San Giorgio, Sogliani painted two pictures which are now in their Church; the one represents San Francesco, the other Santa Elisabetta, Queen of Hungary, who was a sister of that Order.[4]

Sogliani also depicted an exceedingly beautiful Banner for the Brotherhood of the Ceppo. This they bear in procession; on the one side thereof is the Visitation of our Lady, and on the other San Niccolo the Bishop,[5] with two children clothed in the habit of the Flagellants, one of whom holds the book for the Saint, the other bears the three balls of gold.[6] In a picture painted for the chapel of San

  1. This work also is still to be seen in the Church of San Lorenzo.
  2. From the Palace of Taddeo Taddei, who was the friend of Raphael, this tabernacle was removed to the hall of the opposite palace. It has suffered greatly by time and restoration. —Ed. Flor. 1832 -8.
  3. The refectory is now used as a magazine for merchandize.— Ed. Flor. 1832-8.
  4. These pictures have disappeared. They were painted not for the nuns of the Spirito Santo, but for those of San Girolamo.—Ibid.
  5. Still to be seen in the possession of the Brotherhood of the Ceppo. —Ibid.
  6. For the most probable signification of these balls, see vol. if of the