Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/186

178 Trinity in fresco, painted by Mm on the key-stone of the vaulted ceiling. Beside the door of the same hospital, where the foundlings now are, is also a work by him; it represents certain poor persons received by the Superintendent, with several women, all very finely done. Agnolo passed Ms life, labouring and wasting all his time in the preparation of drawings, without putting them into execution, and he finally died as poor as a man well could be. But to return to Cosimo. He left behind him only one son, who was a builder, and a tolerably good architect.

If necessity had not compelled men to the use of their inventive powers for their own advantage and convenience, architecture would never have attained to such excellence, or displayed so much to be admired in the works of those who, to obtain profit and glory, have laboured in that art; nor would these masters ever have gained such honour as is now daily paid to them by all who understand works oi merit. It was necessity that first caused buildings to be erected, and then arose the wish for ornament to the same; whence proceeded the architectural orders, the various decorations, the statues, gardens, baths, and all those other sumptuous appliances which all desire to have, but which few can possess. This it is that has excited in the minds of men the rivalry and emulation with which they labour, not in the erection of buildings only, but for the commodious arrangement of the same. By this, artists are compelled to prove their ingenuity and industry by the discovery of tractile forces, the invention of hydraulic machines, engines of war, catapults, and every other sort of laborious contrivance, which, under the name of architectural and warlike machinery, contribute to disconcert one’s enemies, assist or accommodate one’s friends, and render the world more beautiful and more enjoyable.