Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/65

Rh of, in Bologna, which was, in truth, a very great work for those times, and for the variety of sculptures which it exhibits ; as, for example, its colossal lions supporting columns, with men and other animals also bearing enormous burthens. Above the door he placed the twelve months, each accompanied by its attendant zodiacal sign, with many other fancies, all in high relief, a work which, in those days, must have been considered marvellous.

It was about this time that the order of Friars Minors of St. Francis was founded, and this order, being confirmed by Pope Innocent III in 1206, extended itself in such a manner, not only in Italy but in all other parts of the world, (devotion to the saint increasing together with the number of the friars,) that there was scarcely any city of importance which did not build churches and convents for them, at a vast amount of cost, and each according to its means. These things being so, the Frate Elia, two years before the death of St. Francis, and while the Saint was preaching abroad, as General of the Order, leaving Frate Elia prior in Assisi,—this Elia commenced the building of a church to the honour of the Virgin; but St. Francis dying in the mean time, all Christendom came flocking to visit the body of him who, in life and in death, was known to be so much the friend of God, when every man, making an offering to the holy place according to his ability, large sums were collected, and it was decreed that the church, commenced by the Frate Elia, should be continued on a much more extended and magnificent scale. There was then a great scarcity of good architects, and as the work to be done required an excellent artist, having to be built upon a very high hill, at the foot of which flows a torrent called the Tescio, a certain, a German, was invited to Arezzo, after much deliberation, as the best who was then to be found. This Jacopo, having received the commands of the fathers, who were then holding