Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/391

Rh into ten compartments, or pictures, five on each side, which gave to each compartment one braccio and a third; around the whole and serving as an ornament to the frame-work which encloses the stories, are niches filled with figures in almost full relief, the number of which is twenty, all of exceeding beauty. Among others is the naked form of Sampson, with a jaw bone in his hand and his arm round a column, and this exhibits a degree of perfection which will bear comparison with that displayed by the ancients in their figures of Hercules, whether in bronze or marble. The same may be said of Joshua, who is in the act of addressing his army, and really seems to speak: there are besides, many prophets and sybils, adorned in a richly-varied manner, and displaying the utmost fertility of invention in draperies, head-dresses, ornaments of the hair, and other decorations. Twelve figures, in a recumbent position, were placed in the niches, which are at each corner; and on the angles, in circular cavities, the master executed female heads, with those of youths and old men, the number of all being thirty-four. Among these heads, towards the centre of the door and near to the place where the master has engraved his name, is the portrait of his father-in-law Bartoluccio, which is the oldest of the series, while that of the youngest man is the head of Lorenzo himself, the author of the whole work. There are besides innumerable decorations of foliage, cornices, and other ornaments, all arranged and perfected with the utmost ability and the most zealous care. The folds of this door are adorned, as we have said, with stories from the Old Testament—the first presents the Creation of Adam, and Eve, his wife, whose figures exhibit the very perfection of beauty; and here we perceive that Lorenzo has had it at heart to give them the most exquisite forms that he could devise, intending to show that as our first parents came from the hand of God, the most beautiful of all the creatures that had been made, so in his work they were designed to surpass all the others that he had ever produced in any of his works: without doubt a most worthy consideration. In the same picture are seen our first parents eating the apple, and also at the moment