Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/210

202 admirable taste, with a most correct judgment in all things related to painting; although occupied as a goldsmith in his earliest youth, he yet obtained extraordinary facility in design by continual practice, and was so quick as well as clever, that he is said to have drawn the likenesses of all who passed by his workshop, producing the most accurate resemblance. Of this ability there is a sufficient proof in the numerous portraits to be found in his works, and which are truly animated likenesses.

The first pictures painted by Domenico were for the chapel of the Vespucci, in the church of Ognissanti, where there is a Dead Christ with numerous Saints. Over an arch in the same chapel there is a Misericordia, wherein Domenico has portrayed the likeness of Amerigo Vespucci, who sailed to the Indies; and in the refectory of the convent (of Ognissanti) he painted a fresco of the Last Supper. In Santa Croce, at the entrance of the church on the right hand, Domenico painted the story of Santo Paolino, whereby, having acquired great reputation, and attained to high credit, he was commissioned by Francesco Sassetti to paint a chapel in Santa Trinita, with stories from the life of San Francesco; a work of great merit, and completed by Domenico with infinite grace, tenderness, and love. In the first compartment of this picture is the representation of a miracle performed by St. Francis, and here the master has given an exact counterpart of the bridge of the Santa Trinita with the palace of the Spini: in this work St. Francis appears hovering in the air, and restores to life the child who had been dead; among the women standing around are seen the different emotions of grief for his death, as they are bearing him to the burial, and of joy and amazement as they behold him resuscitated. Domenico has likewise shown the monks is-