Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/222

208 with some other words which cannot easily be read. Beneath this, and in the ornamental border surrounding the picture, are nine angels, who bear other inscriptions, on scrolls prepared for that purpose, some in Latin, some in Italian; they are placed thus on the border, because they would have spoiled the effect if suffered to stand in the midst of the picture, but their not being admitted to the body of the work seems to have displeased the author, by whom they were considered most beautiful, and so perhaps they were, according to the taste of that age. For our part, we omit the greater part of them, that we may not fatigue our readers with matter so far from amusing and so little to the purpose, and besides, as the larger portion of these inscriptions are cancelled, the remainder are nothing more than fragments. When that portion of the work was completed, Orgagna commenced the Last Judgment, wherein he represented Jesus Christ, seated on high amidst the clouds, and surrounded by the twelve Apostles, to judge the quick and the dead. The master lias here displayed the different emotions proper to the occasion, with infinite art and most life-like truth. On the one side he has shown the grievous misery of the condemned, who weep bitterly as they are torn away by furious demons, f who lead them to the infernal regions; and, on the other, are seen the joy and gladness of the good,