Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/131

Rh work have also great and similar merit, but the attitude and grace of the Temperance are such as to render that figure much the best; the veil by which this statue is enveloped has a charm and beauty beyond the power of words to describe, and it is finished with so much lightness and grace, that the work is wonderful to behold.

In the church of Sant’ Agostino in Rome, on one of the pillars in the middle of the building that is to say, this master executed a group in marble, consisting of Sant’ Anna, who holds the Virgin with the infant Christ, in her embrace; the size of the figures is somewhat less than that of life. The work here alluded to may be accounted as one of the most excellent among the productions of modern artists; in the countenance of the elder woman there is an expression of joy and gladness most naturally rendered, the face of the Madonna is adorned with divine beauty, and the figure of the infant Christ exhibits a grace and lightness which have never been surpassed; few indeed have ever been finished to such perfection; well therefore did Andrea merit the sonnets and many other ingenious and learned compositions, which, during so many years, were perpetually appended to this group; insomuch that the monks have a whole book filled with them; I have myself seen this collection, and with no little admiration.

The reputation of Andrea continued constantly to increase; and Leo X., resolving that the decoration in marble of the House of the Virgin in the church of Santa Maria di Loreto, which had been commenced by Bramante, should be completed, entrusted the commission for that work to our artist. The marble incrustation, as commenced by Bramante, had four double ressaults at the angles, and these, decorated with pilasters of which the bases and capitals were carved, were supported by a socle or basement, two braccia and a half high, which is also very richly carved. Immediately above