the subject selected was the Madonna depicted after the ancient manner,[1] and having on her right hand San Niccolò da Tolentino, with the archangel San Michele, who is slaying Lucifer, on the left. In the lunette above these figures is Our Lady clothing one of the saints in the sacerdotal habit, and surrounded by numerous angels. On the ceiling over these works, which are on panel and in oil, Giovan-Antonio painted in fresco a figure of San Jacopo, armed, and on a horse which is rapidly hastening forwards; the saint holds his sword boldly brandished in his hand, and beneath him are lying many Turks, some dead and others wounded.
Beneath these pictures and beside the altar of the same chapel, are Sant’ Antonio the abbot, and a figure of San Sebastiano bound naked to the column; they are in fresco, and are considered very good works.[2]
In the cathedral of the same city of Siena, and on the right hand as you enter the church, there is an altar-piece, painted in oil by the hand of Razzi, in this we have the Madonna with the Divine Child on her knee; San Giuseppe is on one side, and San Calisto on the other; this work is also held to be a very beautiful one, and it is manifest that our artist gave much more attention to the colouring thereof than he usually bestowed on his paintings. For the Brotherhood of the Trinity he painted a very beautiful bier[3] whereon they
- ↑ Vasari here probably means the Madonna with the Divine Child standing beside her, as she is depicted in the earliest paintings on that subject; or with her Son seated on her knee, as he describes Our Saviour Christ to be represented in a subsequent passage: the Infant in the arms of the Virgin being a mode of representation proper to a later age, as our readers will doubtless remember.
- ↑ They are still to be seen in the place above-mentioned.— Ed. Flor. 1832-8.
- ↑ This bier is preserved in the parish church of San Donato; some of
the following anecdote of Giovan Antonio Razzi. Our readers will take it for what it may be worth. Having been affronted by a Spanish soldier, then on guard at one of the city gates, the painter, unable to cope with the numbers by whom the man was surrounded, fixed his eyes on him attentively, and then, returning home, made a portrait of the soldier’s face; this he took to the Spanish Prince, demanding satisfaction for the affront received, and the aggressor being readily discovered by means of the portrait, was punished accordingly, Giovan Antonio himself obtaining at the same time the favour of the Prince, as Armenini assures us he was told by an old man who had been the friend of Razzi.
