Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/263

Rh and finished in a very admirable manner. As much may be said for certain figures of Children which are placed above those just described.

In the church of Capella, which belongs to the monks of Monte Oliveto, Girolamo Santacroce executed two large figures in full relief, which are exceedingly beautiful. At the time when the Emperor Charles V. returned from Tunis, he commenced a statue of that monarch, the sketch was completed, and some parts of the figure were chiselled out, but the work remained only half accomplished, seeing that fortune and death, envying the world so good an artist, took him from us when he had but reached his thirty-fifth year. Had the life of Girolamo endured longer, there are sufficient reasons for believing that, as he had surpassed all the sculptors of his own country, so he might, as had been hoped, have excelled eventually all the artists of his time. His death caused infinite sorrow to the Neapolitans, and the rather as he had been endowed by nature not only with a most admirable genius, but also with a disposition of so much gentleness, modesty, and excellence, that better could not be desired in man; it is therefore not to be wondered at if all who knew him are unable to restrain their tears whenever they speak of the no less estimable than admirable Girolamo Santacroce. The last works of this sculptor were performed in the year 1537, in which year he was interred at Naples with the most honourable obsequies.

Giovanni da Nola, who was an old man, as I have said, when Girolamo was a youth, survived the latter. He was a tolerably practised sculptor, as may be seen by many works which he executed in Naples, and which exhibit much facility, but are not remarkable for any great force of design. He was employed by Don Pietro di Toledo, Marquis of Villa Franca, who was then Viceroy of Naples, to construct a sepulchral monument for himself and his wife; and in this work Giovanni produced a large number of stories, representing the victories obtained by that commander over the Turks, with numerous figures in full relief for the same work, and which are completely isolated; all of them, moreover, being executed with great care. This tomb was to have been taken into Spain, but as Don Pietro did not cause the removal to be effected during his life-time, it