Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/126

118 serve as the ornament of a chimney-piece; but it is to be remembered that the head of Galba has now been transferred to Arezzo, and is in the house of Giorgio Vasari.

While still in Florence, Andrea executed a work in terracotta, for the church of Sant’ Agata, at Monte Sansovino; this represents San Lorenzo and other Saints, v/ith certain historical scenes: the figures are very minute, but all are finished with much ability; and no long time after, the master produced another, that last being a very beautiful Assumption of Our Lady, with Sant’ Agata, Santa Lucia, and San Lomualdo, a work which was afterwards vitrified, or glazed, by some of the della Robbia family.

Pursuing his studies in sculpture, Andrea executed two capitals for the pilasters of the Sacristy of Santo Spirito, these he did Avhile still in his youth, for Simone Pollaiuolo, otherwise called II Cronaca; and they obtained so much commendation for their author, that he was commissioned to erect the Anteroom between the Sacristy and the Church. The space at his disposal being very small, Andrea was compelled to consider the matter very carefully, and he finally determined to erect twelve columns of the Corinthian Order, in the stone called macigno, six on each side; above the columns he then placed the architrave, frieze, and cornice, constructing a coved ceiling, all of the same stone, and dividing the latter into compartments finely decorated with carvings; this was then a new thing, and the work being moreover exceedingly rich and varied, was very greatly admired and extolled. It is true that the work would have been brought much nearer to perfection, if those compartments of the ceiling and the divisions of the cornice, by which the squares and niches forming the decoration of the compartments are separated, had been made with a more careM relation to the lines of the columns; and this might have been very easily effected. But according to what I have heard from old friends of Andrea, he defended himself by reference to