Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/257

Rh was executed * a work remarkable rather for the labour bestowed on its execution than for beauty of design. Another master in tarsia was Geri of Arezzo, who decorated the choir and pulpit of Sant’ Agostino in Arezzo, with these same works, figures, and ornaments, in perspective namely, executed in wood inlaid. This Geri was a man of fanciful invention, and, among other things, he made an organ, the tubes of which are of wood, and the sound is most perfectly soft and sweet; this may still be seen over the door of the sacristy in the episcopal church of Arezzo, preserved in all its first beauty; a thing worthy of remark, Geri being the first to attempt such a work. But no one of these artists, nor any other who pursued the same calling, could equal Benedetto by many degrees, wherefore this master well merits to be ever held in esteem, and must be numbered among the best artists of the professions he exercised.

The Florentine, Andrea del Verrocchio, was at once a goldsmith, a master in persjiective, a sculptor, a carver in wood, a painter, and a musician; but it is true that he had a somewhat hard and crude manner in sculpture and painting, as one who had acquired those arts by infinite labour and study, rather than from a gift of nature. Had he possessed the facility arising from natural powers to an equal degree with the diligence and industry wherewith he was gifted, and which he bestowed on the arts he exercised^ Andrea Verrocchio would have been among the most excellent of masters. But these arts require the union of zealous study with natural qualities in their highest perfection, and where either fails, the artist rarely attains to the first rank in his profession. Yet study will conduct him to a certain eminence, and therefore it is that Andrea, who carried this