Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/218

204 We seldom find a man distinguishing himself in one branch of art, who cannot readily acquire the knowledge of others, more especially of those immediately connected with that to which his attention was first devoted, and which proceed, so to speak, from the same source. We have a case in point exhibited by the Florentine Orgagna, who was at once a painter, sculptor, architect, and poet, as will hereafter appear. Born in Florence, Andrea commenced the study of sculpture while still but a child, under Andrea Pisano, and to this he devoted himself earnestly for some years. Subsequently, being desirous of enriching his powers of invention and attaining distinction in the composition of historical works, he gave the most diligent attention to the practice of drawing, and herein he was powerfully aided by Nature, which had destined him to universality of attainment. He next, as one effort usually leads to another, made attempts at painting in colours, both in fresco and distemper, wherein he succeeded so well, with the assistance of his brother Bernardo Orgagna, that he was taken by the latter to paint in his company in the church of Santa Maria Novella, where, in the principal chapel, which then belonged to the family of the Ricci, the brothers executed together the life of Our Lady. When this work was finished it was considered very beautiful, but no long time after, by the neglect of those who had charge of the building, the roof was suffered to become unsound, when the painting was injured by the rains, and was then put into the state in which we now see it, as will be described in its proper place; let it suffice for the present to say that Domenico Ghirlandajo, by whom it was repainted, availed himself for the most part of Orgagna’s composition. In the same church, the chapel of the Strozzi, which is near to the fisano