Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/28

20 a group of horses in the flight and submersion of Maxentius, these animals being foreshortened with such extraordinary skill, that when the time in which they were executed is considered, we may truly declare them to be excellent and beautiful beyond measure. A figure, partly nude, partly clothed in Saracenic vestments, and seated on a meagre horse, is also in this work, and displays the knowledge which Piero della Francesca possessed of anatomy, a science but imperfectly understood in his time. For all these things, the artist well deserved the large rewards bestowed on him by Luigi Baeci, whose portrait, with those of Carlo and others of his brothers, he has depicted in the figures present at the decapitation of a king, which makes part of the story. The portraits of other Aretine citizens, distinguished as men of letters, accompany those of Luigi and his brothers, by whom Piero was highly esteemed, as he was indeed by the whole city, which he had so richly adorned and ennobled by his works. In the episcopal church of Arezzo, Piero della Francesca executed a in fresco, beside the door of the sancristy; and for the brotherhood of the Nunzata, he painted the banner which they carry in procession. He likewise depicted San Donato in episcopal robes with figures of children, on a seat drawn in perspective at the head of the cloister belonging to Santa Maria delle Grazie, and at San Bernardo he executed a figure of San Vincenzio, in a high niche of the wall, for the monks of Monte Oliveto, which is much esteemed by artists. In a chapel at Sargiano, a residence of the Frati Zoccolanti, situated outside of Arezzo,