Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/246

232 a precaution wholly new. Agnolo then restored the mosaic, and at his recommendation, as well as after his designs, which were of considerable merit, the upper cornice of marble, which is carried round the building immediately beneath the roof, was constructed in the form we now see, that previously existing having been much smaller and of very ordinary character. The hall of the municipal palace was vaulted under the direction of this artist, having before been open to the roof, and this—to say nothing of the ornament—rendered the building less liable to injuries from fire, by which it had suffered grievously at an earlier period. The battlements of the palace, which formerly had none of any kind, were erected at the same time, and also by the advice of Agnolo. While these works were in progress, the artist did not entirely abandon his painting: on the high he depicted the Virgin in distemper, with St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, near whom were San Nereo, San Archileo, and San Pancrazio, brothers, with other saints. But the best part of this work, or rather all that is good in it, is the predella, which is entirely covered by the small figures, composing stories from the lives of the Madonna and of Santa Reparata, divided into eight compartments. Agnolo also painted a choir of angels surrounding a coronation of the Virgin, for the high altar of, in Florence; this he completed in the year 1348, for Barone Capelli, and the work is a tolerably good one. Shortly afterwards he painted, in fresco, a chapel of the capitular church of Prato, which had been rebuilt under the direction of Giovanni Pisano in 1312. As we have before related, the chapel was that wherein the girdle of Our Lady had been deposited, and was decorated by Agnolo with various stories from the life of the Virgin. He executed many other