Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/28

20 hands crossed on her bosom, is regarding her divine Son, whom she contemplates with an expression which implies her perfect assurance that he will not refuse forgiveness. There is, moreover, a certain dignity in the figures of this master with a characteristic propriety, which is without doubt most beautiful; to the holy Patriarchs he gives the reverence of age, to the Apostles the earnest simplicity which is proper to their character, and the faces of his Martyrs are radiant with the faith that is in them. But still more richly varied are the resources of art and genius which this master has displayed in the holy Doctors, who are engaged in disputation, and are distributed over the picture in groups of six, four, or two. Their features give token of a certain eager curiosity, but also of the earnest desire they feel to discover the precise truth of the matter in question: this is made further manifest by the action of the hands and by various movements of the person, they bend the ear with fixed attention, they knit the brow in thought, and offer evidence, in their looks, of surprise, or other emotions, as the contending propositions are presented; each in his own peculiar manner, but all with most appropriate as well as beautiful and varied expression. Distinguished from the rest are the four Doctors of the Church, who, being illuminated by the Holy Spirit, resolve and explain, by the aid of the Holy Scriptures, all the difficulties presented by the gospels, which the boys who are hovering in the air hold before them.

On the third side of the apartment, that namely wherein is the other window which looks upon the court, Eaphael painted, on the one part, Justinian, who is giving the laws to the Doctors for revisal, with figures of Temperance, Fortitude, and Prudence above; on the other, the Pope who delivers the Decretals or canon laws; and in this pontiff Eaphael has depicted the portrait of Pope Julius II.; he has