For the brotherhood of Sant’ Angelo in Arezzo, Antonio painted a banner in oil, with a Crucifix on one side, and St. Michael in combat with the Dragon on the other. This is as beautiful a work as ever proceeded from his hand. St. Michael seizes the Serpent with boldness, and, grinding his teeth and knitting his brows, he seems in truth to be sent from heaven as the avenger of God against the pride of Lucifer; the wdiole picture is, without doubt, a most admirable work. This master treated his nude figures in a manner which approaches more nearly to that of the moderns than was usual with the artists who had preceded him; he dissected many human bodies to study the anatomy, and was the first who investigated the action of the muscles in this manner,[1] that he might afterwards give them their due place and effect in his works. Antonio engraved on copper a combat of these nude figures, all bound together by a chain, and at a later period produced many other engravings, executed in a much better manner than had been exhibited by the masters who had preceded him in this branch of art.[2]
Having rendered himself famous among artists by all these works, Antonio was invited to Rome by Pope Innocent, on the death of Sixtus, his predecessor, and there he constructed a tomb in bronze for the first-mentioned pontiff. In this work he portrayed Pope Innocent seated, and in the attitude of giving the benediction.[3] Antonio likewise erected the sepulchral monument of Pope Sixtus, which was constructed at very great cost in the chapel called by the name of that pontiff.[4] The tomb is richly decorated and
- ↑ Among the painters that is to say, the study of anatomy by physicians is not here alluded to.—Ed. Flor., 1832-8.
- ↑ Known by the name of the Gladiators, but the figures are not bound by a chain, A fac-simile of a part of this work will be found in Ottley’s History of Engraving. See also Bartsch, Peintre Graveur.
- ↑ For the description of this tomb, see Bonanni, Numismata, Tempti Vaticani fabricam indicantia, p. 117. See also Plattner and Bunsen, Behchreibung der Stadt Rom, vol. ii. p. 197.
- ↑ The chapel then called after Pope Sixtus, is now the chapel of the choir. The tomb of Sixtus IV., w^as removed in 1635 to the chapel of the Sacrament.
subjects, those here described by Vasari, the destruction of Antaeus and the Hydra that is, both possessing the qualities here attributed by him to the larger work. They have been engraved in the Galleria di Firenze Illustrata, tom, i. tav. xlv. and xlvi.
