Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/239

Rh city, and the terror thus awakened was quickly followed by the, pest itself, which those troops left behind them. Now whether anxiety respecting this misfortune affected the health of Andrea, or whether it were that, after the want and privations which he had suffered during the siege, he had committed some excess in eating; certain it is, that he one day felt seriously ill, and laid himself in his bed as one whose doom was pronounced: no remedy was found for his disease, nor were many cares bestowed on him, his wife withdrawing herself from him as much as she could, being moved by her fear of the pest. Thus he died, and as it is said, almost without any one being aware of it; and in the same manner was interred with few ceremonies by the men of the Barefooted Brotherhood in the church of the Servites, which was near to his house, and where it was the custom to bury all who belong to that Brotherhood.

The death of Andrea was a great loss to his native city and to the art he practised, seeing that up to the age of fortytwo, which he had attained, he had continually proceeded from one work to another with a constant amelioration of his manner, insomuch that the longer he had lived, the more he would have benefited his art: and much better is it to proceed thus, step by step, gradually but surely acquiring power, and advancing with a foot which becomes evermore stronger and firmer, towards the mastery of all difiiculties, than to attempt the compulsion of nature and genius by sudden efforts. Nor is it to be doubted that Andrea, if he had remained in Rome, when he went thither to see the works of Raffaello and Michelagnolo, and to examine the statues and ruins of that city,—had he then remained in Rome, I say, he would without doubt have greatly enriched his manner as regarded style of composition, and would eventually have attained the power of imparting a more elevated character and increased force to his figures, which are qualities that have never been perfectly acquired by any but those who have been for some time in Rome, studying and carefully labour-