Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/358

344 ceeded perfectly, had not death, which almost always carries olf the most distinguished men just at the moment when they are about to do some good to the world, borne him from his labours before the time. When Luca della Robbia had thus prematurely departed, there still remained Ottaviano and Agostino, his brothers, who survived him, and to Agostino was born another Luca, who was a most learned man in his day. But first of Agostino himself, respecting whom we have to relate that, devoting himself to art as Luca had done, he decorated the fa$ade of the church of San Bernardino in Perugia, in the year 1461, producing three historical representations in basso-rilievo, with four figures in full relief, admirably executed in a very delicate manner. Beneath this work the artist wrote his name in the following words:—

Of the same family was —he was, indeed, a nephew of Luca —who also worked in marble with great ability, as may be seen in the chapel of Santa Maria delle Grazie, without the city of Arezzo, where he was commissioned by the commune to execute a vast marble ornament, comprising a large number of minute figures, some in mezzo-rilievo and others in full relief. This was intended as the framework of a Virgin from the hand of Parri di Spinello, the Aretine painter. Andrea likewise prepared the decorations of the chapel belonging to Puccio di Magio, in the church of San Francesco in the same city: a work which is also in terra-cotta. He, moreover, executed the picture of the Circumcision for