Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/103

Rh destroyed, together with many other buildings and a strong fortress called San Chimenti, by Duke Cosmo de’ Medici, who demolished not only those edifices, but many others situated around the whole circuit of the city ; for the duke determined to replace the old walls, restored by Guido Pietramalesco, formerly bishop and lord of Arezzo, by others much stronger, and furnished with bastions and curtains, stronger and less extended than the others, to the end that they might not require so large a force to maintain them. In these frescoes of Margaritone, in San Clemente, were numerous figures, both small and great, and though in the Greek manner, they were admitted to evince much judgment, as well as love of art, as may be inferred from such works of this master as still remain in Arezzo, more particularly from a picture now in, with a modern frame. It is in the chapel of the Conception, and one part of it is a Madonna, held in high veneration by the brotherhood. In the same church, and also in the Greek manner, Margaritone executed a large crucifix, now placed in that chapel, in which is the superintendents’ room ; he made besides many more of these crucifixes for that city. For the nuns of Santa Margarita this artist executed a work now in the transept of their church ; this is on panel covered with canvas, it represents passages from the life of the Virgin, and that of St. John the Baptist, and comprises many small figures, of better manner than those of larger size, designed with more grace and finished with greater delicacy ; and this work deserves consideration, not only because the little figures are so carefully done that they look like miniatures, but also for the extraordinary fact, that a picture on canvas should have continued in such good preservation during 300 years. Margaritone executed an endless number of pictures