Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/226

218 abbot being thus brought to his senses, did his best from that moment to treat them like honourable men as they were.

Having completed his work at the abbey of Passignano, Domenico returned to Florence, where he painted a picture for the Signor di Carpi, with another which he sent to Rimini, to the Signor Carlo Malatesta, who caused it to be placed in his chapel in San Domenico. This picture was in tempera, and contained three singularly fine figures, with stories in smaller figures below, and others behind painted to imitate bronze, the whole displaying much judgment and art. Two pictures were likewise painted by this master for the abbey of San Giusto, outside Yolterra, which belongs to the order of Camaldoli: these pictures, which are truly beautiful, Domenico painted by command of the illustriou& Lorenzo de’ Medici, the abbey being then held in commendam by his son Giovanni, Cardinal de’ Medici, who was afterwards Pope Leo: and it is but a few years since, that the same abbey was restored by the very reverend Messer Giovan-Batista Bava, of Yolterra, who also held it in commendam to the before-mentioned Brotherhood of Camaldoli.

Being then invited to Siena by the intervention of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Domenico undertook to decorate the fa9ade of the cathedral in mosaic, Lorenzo himself becoming his surety to the extent of 20,000 ducats, for the execution of the work, a labour which he commenced with much zeal and in a better manner than had ever been seen before. But the work was interrupted by the death of the master, who left his task unfinished, as he had previously left the chapel of San Zanobi, which he had begun to adorn with mosaic work in company with the miniature painter, Gherardo, but which was left incomplete on account of the death of the illustrious Lorenzo.

Over that side door of Santa Maria del Fiore which leads into the convent of the Servites, Domenico executed an