Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/287

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giovanni antonio sogliani.
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Jacopo-sopr’Arno, Sogliani depicted the Trinity, with a large number of angels in the form of children, as also Santa Caterina, San Jacopo, and Santa Maria Maddalena, the latter kneeling. Beside this picture are two figures in fresco, standing upright; they represent San Giovanni and San Girolamo doing penance. In the predella of the work Sogliani caused his scholar, Sandrino del Calzolaio, to paint small stories, which have received considerable praise.

At the upper end of an Oratory, in the Gastello d’Anghiari, this master painted a picture of the Last Supper in oil; the figures in the work here in question are as large as life, and on the walls on each side of it our artist depicted the Saviour washing the feet of his disciples on the one hand, with a servant bringing two vessels of water on the other. This work acquired a great reputation for the master in that place, and very deservedly, seeing that it is a very excellent one. He obtained from it accordingly both honour and advantage.[1] A picture painted by Sogliani, and representing Judith with the head of Holofernes, was sent into Hungary, as being a work of great beauty, and one which he executed by commission, for Paolo da Terrarossa, was sent by the latter in like manner to Naples. The subject of this last was the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, and in it there is the perspective view of the exterior of the Chapter-house of the Pazzi,[2] which is in the first cloister of Santa Croce.

Sogliani also painted two other pictures in oil, for one of the Bernard! family; these were placed in a chapel of the church of the Osservanza di San Miniato, and present two figures larger than life, San Giovanni Battista that is to say, and Sant’ Antonio of Padua. Between these figures there was to have been anol^er picture, but Giovan Antonio, being dilatory by nature, and one who liked to work at his leisure, delayed the painting so long that the person who had commissioned him to execute it died; this picture,

    present work, p. 414, note.f:. See also Mrs. Jameson, Poetry of Sacred and Legendary Art, vol. ii. p, 68.

  1. Still in the church of Santa Maria del Fosso, in Anghiari, and considered to be Sogliani’s best work.
  2. Built by Filippo Brunellesco, as may be seen in his life, vol. i.