Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/133

Rh eight small ones, with other minor spaces for the arms and devices of the pope and those of the church.

Having found the work in the state of progress here described, Andrea proceeded to decorate the lower spaces with a finely-ordered series of rich and beautifully executed historical representations from the life of Our Lady. In one of the compartments of the two side walls, he commeneed a story, the subject of which was the Birth of the Madonna; of this he executed the half only, it was therefore completed at a later period by Baccio Bandinelli. In the other compartment he began the representation of the Sposalizio or Marriage of the Virgin, but this also remained unfinished, and was completed after the death of Andrea, by Raifaello da Monte Lupo, in the manner which we now see. On the façade, and in two small spaces which stand one on each side of the bronze grating, Andrea had arranged for the execution of two works in relief, the one a Visitation, the other representing Joseph and Mary going to Jerusalem to be taxed; these works were afterwards executed by Francesco da San Gallo, who was then very young. But in that part where the greater space is left, Andrea himself represented the Annunciation to the Virgin by the angel Gabriel, (an event which took place in the very chamber which these marble decorations enclose,) and this he did with such exquisite grace, that nothing better could possibly be seen. The Virgin in particular is most deeply intent on the salutation she is receiving; and the angel, who is kneeling, does not appear to be a mere figure of marble, but a living being of truly celestial beauty, from whose lips the words, “Ave Maria,” seem to be sounding. Gabriel is accompanied by two other angels, in full relief, and entirely detached from the marble which forms the ground, one of these follows immediately behind Gabriel, the other appears in the attitude of fiying. There are, furthermore, two angels besides these, seen to be advancing from behind a building, and so delicately chiseled that they have all the appearance of life. In the air, on a cloud so lightly treated as to be almost entirely detached from the marble beneath, is a group of angels in the form of boys, who support a figure of God the Father, in the act of sending down the Holy Spirit; this is effected by means of a ray which streams from the person of the Almighty,