Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/246

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lives of the artists.

a precaution wholly new. Agnolo then restored the mosaic, and at his recommendation, as well as after his designs, which were of considerable merit, the upper cornice of marble, which is carried round the building immediately beneath the roof, was constructed in the form we now see, that previously existing having been much smaller and of very ordinary character. The hall of the municipal palace was vaulted under the direction of this artist, having before been open to the roof, and this—to say nothing of the ornament—rendered the building less liable to injuries from fire, by which it had suffered grievously at an earlier period. The battlements of the palace, which formerly had none of any kind, were erected at the same time, and also by the advice of Agnolo. While these works were in progress, the artist did not entirely abandon his painting: on the high altar of San Pancrazio he depicted the Virgin in distemper, with St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, near whom were San Nereo, San Archileo, and San Pancrazio, brothers,[1] with other saints. But the best part of this work, or rather all that is good in it, is the predella, which is entirely covered by the small figures, composing stories from the lives of the Madonna and of Santa Reparata, divided into eight compartments.[2] Agnolo also painted a choir of angels surrounding a coronation of the Virgin, for the high altar of Santa Maria Maggiore, in Florence; this he completed in the year 1348, for Barone Capelli, and the work is a tolerably good one.[3] Shortly afterwards he painted, in fresco, a chapel of the capitular church of Prato, which had been rebuilt under the direction of Giovanni Pisano in 1312. As we have before related, the chapel was that wherein the girdle of Our Lady had been deposited, and was decorated by Agnolo with various stories from the life of the Virgin.[4] He executed many other

  1. St. Nereus and St. Archileus, or Achilleus, were brothers; but St. Pancratius was in no way connected with them. He was a Roman youth who was martyred on the spot where his church now stands, at the Gate of San Pancrazio, at Rome.
  2. This picture is in the Gallery of the Pine Arts in Florence.
  3. The commentators differ as to the fate of this picture, of which nothing certain is known.
  4. The most important work of Agnolo now remaining, and in tolerably good preservation. It was restored in 1831, by Sig. Antonio Marini, of Prato. —Montani.