Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/330

322 departure of Leonardo da Vinci to France, but the former, when he had completed the half of one, out of the two pictures, of which the Altar-piece was to be composed, departed to another life; whereupon the monks, moved hj the faith they had placed in Pietro, confided the whole ’work to his care. In this painting, wherein Filippino had begun to represent the Deposition of Christ from the Cross, that master had finished the upper part, where Nicodemus is lowering the body; Pietro therefore continued the work by painting the lower part, the swooning of Our Lady namely, with certain other figures. And as this work was to consist of two pictures, the one to be turned towards the choir of the monks, and the other towards the body of the church, the monks proposed to have the deposition towards the choir, with an Assumption of the Virgin towards the church, but Pietro executed the latter in so ordinary a manner, that they determined to have the Deposition in front, and the Assumption towards the choir; both have now been removed to other altars in the same church, and the Tabernacle of the Sacrament has been erected in their place. Of this work, therefore, six small pictures only have remained at the high altar, certain saints namely, which were painted in niches by Pietro. I find it related, that when the painting was first uncovered, all the new artists censured it greatly, principally because Pietro had again adopted the same figures that had been previously painted in other of his works, for which his friends reproached him not a little, declaring that he had taken no pains, but whether induced by avarice, or by the desire to spare his time, had departed from his usual good manner; to all which Pietro replied, “I have painted in this work the figures that you formerly commanded, and which then pleased you greatly; if they now displease you, and you no longer extol them, what can I do?” This did not pre-