Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/334

320 the works of that edifice more prudently directed. The master survived his appointment to his office only three years; he nevertheless effected many useful and creditable improvements in the building. Jacopo della Quercia, although but a sculptor, drew extremely well, as may be seen in certain drawings by his hand, preserved in our book, and which would rather seem to have been done by a miniature painter I than a sculptor. His portrait, similar to that here given, was received by me from Maestro Domenico Beccafumi, painter of Siena, who has, moreover, related to me many circumstances respecting the talents, goodness, and courtesy of Jacopo, who, worn out by continual efforts and perpetual labours, died at Siena in the sixty-fourth year of his age, and was honourably borne to his grave, in the place of his birth, by his kindred and friends. Jacopo della Quercia was lamented not by his friends and relations only, but by the whole city; and it must needs be admitted that he was fortunate, in that his many good qualities were appreciated and acknowledged in his native land, since it rarely happens that distinguished men are universally beloved and honoured in their own country.

One of the disciples of Jacopo was the Lucchesan sculptor , who executed the small octangular oratory, in marble, which encloses the image of the Holy Cross, in the church of San Martino, in his native city, a work which was miraculously produced, as we are told, by Nicodemus, one of the seventy-two disciples of our Redeemer. This work Matteo completed in the year 1444 for Domenico Galignano, also a Lucchese, and it is, without doubt, a beautiful and well-proportioned structure. The same artist sculptured a marble