Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/455

Rh only for his talents but for his many excellent qualities: devoted to labour, of a quiet mind, upright by nature, and duly impressed with the fear of God; a retired life was that of his choice, he shunned all vicious practices, delighted greatly in the preaching of pious men, and always sought the society of the learned and sober. And of a truth, it is seldom that Nature gives birth to a man of genius, who is at the same time an artist of retired habits, without also providing him, after a certain period, with the means of repose and a quiet life, as she did for Baccio, who ultimately obtained all that was demanded by his moderate desires, as will be related in its due place. The report that this master was no less excellent in character than able as an artist, being disseminated abroad, he soon became highly celebrated, and Gerozzo di Monna Yenna Dini confided to him the commission to paint the chapel, wherein the remains of the dead are deposited, in the cemetery of the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. Here Baccio commenced a painting in fresco, of the Last Judgment, which he executed with so much care and in so admirable a manner, in the portion which he finished, that he acquired a still further increase of reputation. He was extolled above all for the remarkable ability wherewith he has depicted the glories of the blessed in Paradise, where Christ with the twelve apostles is seated in judgment on the twelve tribes, the figures being most beautifully draped and the colouring exquisitely soft. One part of this work remained unfinished, the condemned dragged away to hell namely; of these forms we have the outline only. The design of the master has, nevertheless, made the shame, despair, and dread of eternal death, as clearly manifest in the expression of their faces, as are content and joy in the countenances of those who are saved, although the picture, as we have said, was left unfinished, our artist having a greater inclination for the practices of religious worship than for painting.

Now it happened at the time of which we now speak that Fra Girolamo Savonarola, of Ferrara, a renowned theologian of the order of Preachers, was in the convent of San Marco; where Baccio attended his preaching with infinited evotion,