Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/260

252 and is now placed, as being a very beautiful thing, over a door in the apartments of the Duchess of Florence. The same master also executed two heads in metal, one representing Alexander the Great, taken in profile; the other Darius, portrayed after his own fancy; each forming a separate picture by itself, both in mezzo-rilievo, and varied in the crests, armour, and all other particulars. These were both sent to Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, by the illustrious Lorenzo de’ Medici the elder, with many other things, as will be related in the proper place.

Having by all these works acquired the name of an excellent master, more especially as regarded casting in bronze, wherein he took great delight, Andrea was appointed to execute the monument of Giovanni and Piero, sons of Cosimo de’ Medici, the decorations of which are in bronze, and in full relief. The sarcophagus is of porphyry, supported by four bronze consoles, which are decorated with foliage of great beauty, and finished with the most diligent care. This monument stands between the chapel of the sacrament and the sacristy, nor would it be possible to discover a more perfectly executed work, whether cast or chiselled; on this occasion the master also gave proof of his skill in architecture. Having erected the tomb in question within the embrasure of a window, five braccia in breadth, and about ten high, and placed the sarcophagus on a basement which divides the above-named chap: 1 of the sacrament from the old sacristy; he then, to clo^- e the aperture from the tomb to the ceiling, constructed a grating in bronze, of an oviform pattern, representing most naturally a net work of ropes, which he adorned at intervals with festoons and other fanciful embellishments, the whole work evincing great powers of invention, extraordinary judgment, and consummate skill. Donatello had erected a tabernacle for the Council of Six of the Guild of Merchants (that which is now in the oratory of Or San Michele opposite to St. Michael), and there was likewise to have been made a San Tommaso in bronze, laying