Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/258

244 the same city; furthermore, in that church of Sant’ Agostino-, Moccio erected the sepulchre of Fra Zenone Vigilanti, the bishop and general of the order of St. Augustine; lastly, he built the loggia for the merchants of Ancona, which has since undergone many changes, now from one cause and now from another, and has received various improvements, with modern ornaments of different kinds. All the works of this artist, although considered much beneath mediocrity in our day, were at that time, and according to the knowledge of those men, held in no small estimation. But returning to Duccio, we close our account of his life with the observation, that the works of this painter were executed about the year of our salvation 1350.

Many men, who would gladly remain in the country of their birth, being wounded by the tooth of envy, or oppressed by the persecutions of their fellow-citizens, wander forth to some land, where their talents being acknowledged and appreciated, they there make their home, thus choosing a new country, wherein they then bring forth the fruits of their genius. Nay, they sometimes labour all the more earnestly for distinction, to the end that they may thus in a certain sort take vengeance on those by whom they have been outraged, and not unfrequently become great men by these means, when, had they remained quietly in their native land, they might perchance hare attained little beyond mediocrity in the vocation of their choice. , who repaired to Florence for the purpose of studying the art of