Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/198

190

Now it chanced that the sacristan of the Servites had given Franciabigio a commission to paint one of the stories still wanting in the cloister, whereof there has already been made mention more than once; but the latter had not yet finished the preparation of the ground for his work, when Andrea, dispirited by the apprehension of being surpassed by Franciabigio, who appeared to him to handle the colours in fresco more rapidly and with more ability than himself—Andrea, I say, prepared Cartoons for two stories, almost as in contention with the former, proposing to execute them immediately, in the angle situate between the side door of San Bastiano, and the smaller door which leads from the cloister into the Church of the Nunziata. The Cartoons were no sooner completed, therefore, than Andrea set himself to execute the work in fresco; in the first of his stories he represented the Birth of Our Lady, the composition exhibiting well proportioned figures, very gracefully disposed about a chamber, whither certain women, relations, and friends of Sant’ Anna have repaired to visit the latter, who is in her bed. These her visitors are grouped around the mother of the newly born Babe, and are clothed in such vestments as were customary at that time: others, who are of an inferior condition, stand about the fire; some are washing the Infant, while some of them are preparing the swathing bands, and others perform other services of similar kind. A child, who is warming itself at the fire, is depicted very naturally, and with much animation; an old man also who is reposing on a couch, is a figure of great merit, and the same may be said respecting each of the women who are taking food to the patient lying in her bed, the movements and actions of all being truly appropriate and most natural. There are, moreover, certain angels represented by children hovering in the air and