Vaga, Giovan-Antonio da Pordenone, and Girolamo da Trevisi had previously executed numerous works.[1] But Domenico could not promise the Prince to repair to Genoa in his service at that time, having just then a portion of the marble floor of the Cathedral on hand, and this, which had been formerly commenced by the Sienese painter Duccio,[2] in a new manner of work, Domenico Beccafumi was now compelled to finish; but he engaged to enter the service of Prince Doria at some future period.
The figures and historical representations wherewith the pavement above-mentioned was to be decorated, were already for the most part designed on the marble, the outlines being engraved with the chisel and then filled with a black mixture, when the whole was surrounded by ornaments of coloured marbles, with which the ground of the work was likewise adorned. But Domenico, with his admirable judgment, perceived that this mode of decoration might be sensibly ameliorated, to which end he took grey marbles, and with these, prepared by the chisel and added to the white, he produced the half shades, and found that by this method and by the use of the black and white marble as described, he could produce marble pictures in chiaro-scuro with the utmost perfection.[3] The portion which Domenico had taken in hand by way of trial, proved the attempt to have been entirely successful, whether we consider the beauty of the invention, the excellence of the design, which was most correct, or the rich variety of the figures; insomuch that this master may be said to have formed the commencement of the grandest, most beautiful, and most magnificent pavement that had ever then been achieved, and in the course of his life he gradually conducted the greater part of it to completion.[4]
- ↑ See ante, the lives of these masters.
- ↑ Rumohr, Italienische Forschungen, vol. ii. p. 5, maintains that Duccio took no part in this work.
- ↑ The practice here attributed to Domenico Beccar'umi did not in fact prevail until many years later, when it was first adopted by Michelagnolo Vanni, as we learn from the inscription on his tomb, which is stili to be seen in the Church of San Giorgio at Siena.
- ↑ The Cartoons made by Domenico for this work were long in the possession of the noble family of the Spannocchi, but were presented some years since to the Sienese Institute of the Fine Arts, by the members of that family. See Quatremere—Dictionaire d'Architecture.
