Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/250

242 aversion to the occupation, and for the shame it had brought him to, he could no longer endure it. Laying aside all doubt and timidity therefore, he resolved to devote himself to sculpture, an art in which he had already made some attempts while at Loretto, with Giuliano, his uncle; he had executed the Lavatory of the Sacristy, for example, with several Angels in marble. Before he left Hungary, therefore, he proved to the king, that if he had in the first instance been put to shame, the fault was in the inferior nature of the work, and not in his genius, which was a versatile and exalted one. Having executed many works, both in terra-cotta and marble, all which pleased the king greatly, Benedetto returned to Florence: he had no sooner arrived there than he was appointed by the Signoria to execute the decorations, in marble, for the door of their chamber of audience, where he sculptured figures of boys, which are very beautiful, supporting festoons of flowers with their arms; but the most admirable portion of this work is the central figure, that of St. John, as a youth, which is held to be of singular beauty; the height is two braccia: and to the end that the whole work should be by his own hand, Benedetto executed the wood-work which encloses the door himself, representing figures in woods inlaid, on the folds, on each fold one, that is to say, the figure of Dante being on one side, and that of Petrarch on the other. To any one who has seen no other work of this kind by Benedetto, these two figures alone may suffice to show how admirable and excellent a master in tarsia he was. The audience-chamber has, in our day, been painted at the command of the Signor Duke Cosimo, by Francesco Salviati, as will be related in its due place.

In the church of Santa Maria Novella, at Florence, and in the chapel, painted by Filippino, Benedetto constructed a Sepulchral Monument of black marble, for Filippo Strozzi,