Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/251

Rh many accidents to which all, from various causes, are liable, often deprive us too early of those who might be most distinguished. Of this we have an instance in the hapless Sienese painter Berna, who, although he died young, yet left so many works, that we might easily believe his life to have been a long one; and these works were of such a character, as to impress on us the conviction that he would have been most eminently distinguished if his death had not been so prematurely hastened. Among the works of this master remaining in Siena are certain historical representations, in fresco, in two chapels of the ; there was, besides, on one of the walls of the same church, the story of a youth led to execution, than which it is not possible to conceive a more perfect work: the pallor and dread of death were depicted on his face with such truth and reality, that for this only the artist would merit the highest praise; beside the youth was a monk, who was seeking to console the sufferer, and whose attitude was very fine. The whole work, in short, was so admirably executed, and the story so eloquently told, that we clearly perceive the artist to have formed a most vivid conception of the fearful circumstance he describes. He has represented it as it must needs be, full of the bitterest agony, the most cruel terror; reproducing the whale so admirably with his pencil, that the scene itself, taking place before one’s eyes, would scarcely awaken more profound emotions. This work has unhappily been destroyed in our own day, the wall having been removed to make way for the chapels, which have been constructed in that part of the church.

In the city of Cortona, besides many -works scattered about in different parts of the same, Berna painted the greater part of the walls and ceiling in the , where is now the convent of the Franciscan monks, called Zoccolanti. From Cortona he went to Arezzo, in the year 1369, and precisely at the moment when the Tarlati, who had formerly been lords of Pietramala, had caused the convent