Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/250

236 236 LIVES OF THE ARTISTS.

beautiful, facile, and most pleasing, that may be comprehended and seen to be good at a glance, by whomsoever possesses the slightest degree of judgment and comprehension. All these disciples of Agnolo did him great honour. He was entombed by his sons, (to whom it is affirmed that he left 50,000 florins, or more) in the sepulchre which he had himself prepared for his burial and that of his descendants, in Santa Maria Novella, in the year of our salvation 1387. The portrait of Agnolo, by his own hand, may be seen in the chapel of the Alberti, in Santa Croce, in a painting near the door, wherein the emperor Heraclius is depicted bearing the cross: he is represented in profile, with a short thin beard, and on his head is a cap of a red colour, of the form proper to the period. Agnolo Gaddi was not particularly excellent in design, to judge from the specimen presented in certain drawings by his hand, which are to be found in our book.

If those who labour to attain excellence in art or science were not too frequently cut off by death in the best of their days, there is no doubt but that many exalted minds would have gained the summit towards which their aims tended, and whither the world, as well as themselves, would have rejoiced to see them arrive. But the brevity of man’s life, and the