Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/204

196 He painted another picture of Our Lady, for the Joiner Hizza, nor was this in any degree less remarkable for its excellence than are the other works of this master.

The Guild of the Merchants then determined to cause triumphal chariots of wood to be made, in the manner of the ancient Eomans, to the end that these vehicles might be drawn in procession on the morning of the festival of San Giovanni, instead of the canopies of cloth, with wax lights, which are borne by the different cities and fortresses in token of subjection and tribute, when they pass on that festival before the duke and the principal magistrates. Ten of these chariots were then prepared, and Andrea painted some of them in chiaro-scuro, others he decorated with stories depicted in oil, and these works were very highly commended. It had been proposed that some of the chariots here described should be made every year, until every city and town should possess its own (when they would certainly have made a magnificent addition to the pomp of that show); but since the year 1527, the preparation thereof has nevertheless been abandoned.

While Andrea was thus adorning his native city with these and other works, and at the same time adding daily to his own glory, the men of the confraternity called that of the Barefooted Brethren resolved that he should complete the work which he had formerly commenced in their cloister, where he had then depicted the Baptism of Christ. The master therefore, having recommenced his work with much good will, painted two other stories in that place, adding two very beautiful figures of Justice and Charity as ornaments to a door which opened into the house of the confraternity. In one of the stories now in question, the artist