Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/144

130 artists, who, although they have not produced works of sufficient importance to entitle them to a separate biography, have yet contributed in some degree to the amelioration of art, and the embellishment of the world. Wherefore, taking occasion from what has been said above of the episcopal and capitular buildings of Arezzo, I add, that and, goldsmiths of Arezzo, who acquired the art of drawing from Agostino and Agnolo of Siena, were the first who produced large works of merit with the chasing hammer. These artists executed a, bishop and protector of that city, was enclosed ; and this work was well worthy of commendation, not only because there were certain figures in enamel of considerable excellence, with other ornaments, to be enumerated among its merits, but also because it was one of the first things done, as we have said, with the chaser.

It was about the same time, or shortly before, that, at Florence, employed , an excellent goldsmith, to construct the greater part, if not the whole, of the for the , on which various events from the life of that saint were represented on a plate of silver, embossed with figures in mezzo-rilievo, of tolerably good workmanship. This altar, either from its size, or because it was something new, was then considered most admirable by all who beheld it. In the year 1330, the remains of were discovered beneath the vaults of the  ; when this same Maestro Cione enclosed that portion of the head of the saint which is now carried in processions, within a, of the size of life. This head was then accounted a very beautiful thing, and won a great name for the artist, who died soon after, rich and in high reputation.