Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/107

Rh his own fellow citizens. So powerful indeed were these emotions of anger and bitterness, that Andrea began to consider if he could not by one means or another remove this competitor from his sight. Andrea dal Castagno was no less subtle in dissimulation than clever as a painter; he could assume a cheerful countenance at his pleasure, had a ready tongue, was a man of a bold spirit, and was as decided in acting as in resolving; he had the same dispositions towards others as towards Domenico; and when he perceived a fault in the work of an artist, would mark it secretly with his nail. But when, in his youth, his own works were censured by any one, he would fall on such critics with blows and other injurious retorts, giving them to understand that he was always both able and willing to avenge himself in one mode or another on all who might offend him.

But before we speak of the paintings in the above-named chapel, we will say a few words of Domenico. This master, in company with Piero della Francesca, had executed different works in the Sacristy of Santa Maria, at Loretto, before repairing to Florence; and these paintings, displaying much grace and beauty, had caused his fame to be known in the last-named city, a result to which other works, in various places (in Perugia, for example, where he had painted a chamber in the palace of the Baglioni family, which palace is now destroyed), had also contributed. Being invited to Florence, therefore, the first thing that he did was to paint a Tabernacle in fresco, at the corner of the Carnesecchi, in the angle of the two roads, leading, the one to the new, the other to the old Piazza of Santa Maria Novella. The subject of this work is a Virgin surrounded by various Saints, and as it pleased the Florentines greatly, and was much commended by the artists of the time, as well as by the citizens, this picture awakened still more bitter rage and envy against poor Domenico, in the ill-regulated mind of Andrea, who determined to accomplish by treachery the purpose which he could not bring about openly, without manifest danger to himself. He, therefore, affected a great friendship for Domenico, and the