Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/88

64 St. Laurence, fills up the opposite corner of the picture, to which is attached a predella representing incidents in the lives of these saints. Both in this altar-piece and in his mural paintings we are conscious of a certain austerity and symmetry of design, and realise that Orcagna was greater as a sculptor than as a painter. His chief achievement in this direction was the famous tabernacle which he designed and executed between 1349 and 1359, for the church of Or' San Michele, to contain a wonder-working picture of the Madonna which had become the object of popular devotion during the great plague of 1348. This white marble shrine, with its spiral columns and pinnacles rising almost to the roof of the church, delicately carved and studded with jewels and enamels, is in itself a marvel of the sculptor and goldsmith's art; while Andrea's vigorous and dramatic bas-reliefs of the Death and Assumption of the Virgin form a connecting link between the sculptures of Giotto's Campanile and the bronze gates of the Baptistery. From 1355 to 1359 Andrea held the post of Capo-maestro to this church of Or' San Michele, which had arisen on the site of the ancient Corn Market, and was under the protection of the seven chief Florentine Guilds. In 1356 he received an order from the Signory to build the Loggia de' Priori, which bears his name, on the public square, but never executed the work, which was only begun seventy years later. In the same year his design for the chief doorway of the Duomo was accepted, and in 1358 he was summoned to Orvieto, and appointed Capo-maestro of the Duomo works. He afterwards returned there at intervals, and executed the mosaic decorations of the façade