Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/129

Rh the Saviour is so admirably foreshortened, that it seems to pierce the vault; and the same may be said of the angels who are floating in various attitudes through the fields of air. The apostles, who stand on the earth beneath, are in like manner foreshortened so well, in the different attitudes given to them, that the work was then, and continues still to be, greatly commended by artists, who have learned much from the labours of this master. Melozzo was also well acquainted with the laws of perspective, as the buildings painted in this picture sufficiently demonstrate. The work here described was executed by command of Cardinal Riario, nephew of Pope Sixtus IV., by whom the master was largely remunerated.

But to return to Benozzo. Exhausted at length by time and by his labours, he departed in bis seventy-eighth year to the true rest. This master died in the City of Pisa while dwelling in a small house which he had purchased during the long period of his abiding there, in Carraja di San Francesco, and which he left at his death to his daughter. He was regretted by all the city, and was honourably interred in the Campo Santo with the following epitaph, which is still to be read there:—

Benozzo always lived with great regularity, and in the manner of a true Christian, his whole life being occupied with honourable labours. He was long looked upon with great consideration in Pisa, as well for his excellent qualities as for the distinction to which he had attained in art. The disciples whom he left behind him were, Zanobi Macchiavelli, a Florentine, and some others who do not require more particular mention.