Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/420

406 life: but not finding himself at his ease in Florence, and stimulated bv his love and zeal for art, the master resolved to proceed to Rome, that he might there learn to surpass others, and this he effected. In Rome Masaccio acquired high reputation, and in a chapel of the church of San Clemente, he painted a Crucifixion in fresco, with the thieves on their crosses, and also stories from the life of St. Catherine the martyr. This work he executed for the cardinal of San Clemente. He likewise painted many pictures in distemper; but in the troubled times of Rome these have all been destroyed or lost. There is one remaining in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, and in a small chapel near the sacristy, wherein are four saints so admirably done that they seem rather to be executed in relief than on the plain surface: in the midst of these is Santa Maria della Neve. The portrait of Pope Martin, taken from nature, is also by this master: the pontiff is represented holding a spade in his hand, with which he is tracing out the foundations of the church; near the pope stands the figure of the Emperor Sigismund II. I was one