Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/124

116 thorns, at the close of a ascent discovers himself finally to have attained a broad level, with all the happiness that can be desired. And if he then look back and consider the difficult and perilous passages laboriously overcome, he thanks God who hath safely conducted him through them to the point which he has reached, and with gladness of heart blesses those efforts which he had previously found so painful. Thus restored and repaid for his bygone sufferings by the joys of the happy present, he now labours without any sense of fatigue, to make known to all who observe him the certainty with which the pains endured, and the heat, cold, hunger, thirst, and other inconveniences sustained, for the acquirement of excellence, are rewarded by freedom from poverty, and by the attainment of that secure and tranquil condition in which the wearied Benozzo Gozzoli happily enjoyed his repose.

This artist was the disciple of the deservedly-entitled angelic master. Fra Giovanni, by whom he was with reason much beloved; he was acknowledged by all who saw his works, to possess great power of invention, much facility, and richly varied resources in the delineation of animals, in perspective, in landscape, and in decorations. Benozzo Gozzoli executed so many labours in his day that he proved himself to have but little regard for any pleasure beside; and, although in comparison with certain other masters, who surpassed him in design, he was not particularly eminent; he yet left all far behind him in perseverance, and among the multitude of his works there are many that are very good. In his youth, Benozzo painted an altar-piece for the Brotherhood of San Marco in Florence, as he did also the death of St. Jerome for the church of San Friano; but the latter was destroyed when that front of the church, which is bounded by the street, was restored.