beneath are the Apostles, all of whom are larger than life:[1] there are, besides, other figures and stories, the whole being surrounded by ornaments which are in a manner that is quite new.
The Signor Duke, who is of a truth most excellent in all things, takes much pleasure, not only in the building of palaces, cities, fortresses, gates, loggie, and piazzas, with the laying out of gardens, construction of fountains, and works of similar kind, all beautiful, magnificent, and most useful to his people, but he has also infinite delight, as a Catholic prince, in the restoration and improvement of the holy churches of God, therein imitating the great King Solomon. Wherefore he has lately caused me to remove the screen and rood-loft of Santa Maria Novella, which had long deprived that Church of its beauty,[2] when I made a new and rich Choir behind the High Altar; this has given the Church quite a new aspect; and as nothing can be entirely beautiful which has not harmony and correctness of proportion, the Duke has ordered that rich ornaments in stone, of a new kind, shall be constructed between the columns in the sideaisles; they are placed immediately beneath the arches, and with their altars in the centre; they serve as Chapels, and are all in one out of two manners. The pictures, which are to be seven braccia high and five wide, are to be placed within the ornaments, and will be painted at the pleasure of those who may own these Chapels.
Within one of them, for example, I have already executed a picture, after my own design, for the most reverend Monsignore Alessandro Strozzi, Bishop of Yolterra, my old and most beloved patron, depicting therein a figure of Christ Crucified, according to the Vision of Sant’ Anselmo that is to say; with the Seven Virtues, without which we cannot ascend the seven degrees to Jesus Christ: there are also other allusions to the Life of Sant’ Anselmo in that picture.[3] In the same Church, nay, within another of the above-men-
- ↑ The work here in question serves as a kind of Canopy to the imitation of an organ.— Masselli.
- ↑ This removal caused great regret to many, and not without reason, since it involved the destruction of numerous frescoes, among which were some by Mataccio, but unhappily not even these were spared.— Ed. Flor., 1846-51. See also Gaye, Carteggio, &c., vol. ii. Appendix, p. 480.
- ↑ This picture is no longer in the Church of Santa Maria Novella, nor can its present place be ascertained.
