Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/255

Rh tions we have already spoken; and over the inner one Benedetto placed a seated figure of Justice, holding a sword in one hand and the globe in the other; around the arch is the following inscription: Diligite Justitiam qui judicatis terram. The whole work was conducted with admirable art, and finished with extreme care and diligence. For the church of the Madonne delle Grazie, but a short distance without the city of Arezzo, Benedetto erected a portico with a flight of steps leading to the door of the entrance. In the construction of this portico, Benedetto made the arches resting on the columns, and beneath the roof he placed an architrave, frieze and cornice entirely around the fabric. To the channel for conveying off the water, which projects to the extent of a braccio and a third, he gave the form of a chaplet of roses, cut in the hard stone called macigno; between the base of the eaves and the denticulated and oviform ornaments beneath the channel, there is a space of two braccia and a half; and this, with the half braccio added by the tiles, gives a projecting roof of about three braccia, a very useful, beautiful, rich, and ingenious work. In this portico, and in the peculiarities of its construction, there are many things worthy the consideration of artists; for the master, desiring to give his roof so great a projection without modillions or corbels for its support, made the stones on which are the carved rosettes of such a size that the one half of them only stood forward, while the other half was firmly built into the wall; being thus counterpoised, they were able to bear the whole weight afterwards laid on them without any danger of injury to the building, as they have done to the present day, and as the architect did not wish the' roof of the portico to appear of many pieces, as it really was, he surrounded the whole, piece by piece, with a cornice, which seems to form a base to the chaplet of rosettes, and this being fixed in coffer-work and well conjoined, united the whole in such a manner, that whoever sees the work believes it to be entirely of one piece. In the same place