Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/93

Rh said of sculpture, since all that was done in Italy, by the masters of that time, betrays extreme rudeness, as we have already observed in the introduction to these lives. The truth of this remark may be proved in many places, and particularly in Pistoja, in the, belonging to the Canons Regular, where may be seen a pulpit most rudely sculptured, by ; the subjects represented are early scenes from the life of Christ, wiih the following words, engraved by the artist himself, in the year 1199 :— “ Sculptor laudatur quod doctus in arte probatur Guido de Como me cunctis carmine promo.” But to return to the. I say nothing of its origin, because Giovanni Villani, and others, have written respecting it ; and having before observed that the improved architecture of our own times is due to that building, I will only add that, so far as we can now judge, the tribune was constructed at a later period ; and that, at the time when, succeeding the Florentine painter Lippo, restored the Mosaic, it was perceived that the surface had formerly been coloured in red, the designs being executed immediately on the stucco.

Andrea Tafi, then, and the Greek Apollonius, when they decorated this tribune in Mosaic, divided it into compartments, which, contracted at their commencement, under the lantern, became gradually more extended as they approached their termination at the cornice, the upper part being divided into circles, each representing historical scenes. In the first are all the servants and ministers of the Divine will, namely, the Angels, Archangels, Cherubim, Seraphim, Powers, Thrones, and Dominions. In the second, also in Mosaic, after the Greek manner, are depicted the principal works of God, from the creation of light to the deluge. In the circle beneath this, which descends with increased space to the eight sides of the tribune, the history of Joseph and his twelve brothers is represented. Beneath the circles are other compartments, all of equal size, and representing the life of Christ, in Mosaic, from the Annunciation to the moment of his Ascension into Heaven. Under the three friezes is the life of St. John the Baptist, commencing with the angel appearing to Zacharias, and proceeding to the decapitation of the saint, and his burial