Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/202

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194
lives of the artists.

in prayer with her hands joined.[1] In a chapel of the church of San Giustino, Domenico painted the Adoration of the Magi in fresco, for Messer Antonio Rotelli;[2] and for the brotherhood of the Madonna he painted a very large picture in the capitular church, wherein he represented the Madonna in the air, with the people of Arezzo beneath. In this work Domenico was assisted by a Spanish painter, who painted well in oil, with the practice of which Pecori was not so familiar as with that of tempera; there are many portraits from the life in this picture.[3] With the assistance of the same artist Domenico executed a picture for the brotherhood of the Trinity, representing the circumcision of Our Lord, which was considered an excellent work;[4] and in the garden of Santa Flora he painted a Noli me Tangere in fresco.[5] Finally, Domenico Pecori painted a picture with many figures in the capitular church, for the dean of the archives, Messer Donato Marinelli. This work exhibits great power of invention, good design, and most careful execution, insomuch that it both did, and continues to do, great honour to the master. For this work, as Domenico was becoming old, he called in the aid of Capanna, a Sienese painter, and a tolerably good artist, by whom many fronts of buildings, in his native city, were decorated in chiaro-scuro, and many pictures painted. It may indeed be supposed, if we may judge from the little left by this master, that, had his life been of longer continuance, he would have done much honour to his art.[6] Domenico had painted a canopy in oil, for the brotherhood of Arezzo, an exceedingly rich and costly work. This was sent to the church of San Francesco not many years since, to adorn a Paradise, constructed almost

  1. This picture, somewhat injured by re-touching, is now in the Sacristy of the Cathedral of Arezzo the church of Sant’ Antonio having been destroyed.
  2. Roselli, not Rotelli. This work had ceased to exist in Bottari’s time.
  3. Still in its place. The Spanish paint^:r may probably be that Giovanni Spagnuolo, called Lo Spagna, mentioned by Vasari among the disciples of Pietro Perugino. (?)—See Gaye, vol. ii. p. 89.
  4. Now in the parish church of Sant’Agostino.
  5. This work is still in existence, but much injured, the place being used by the gardeners as a tool-house.
  6. Of Capanna Vasari speaks again in the life of Peruzzi.