Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/301

Rh of every kind, all executed in a very careful and most admirable manner. A further testimony to the value of their labours is in the frequency with which they have been and are copied and imitated by foreign masters, wherefore it may safely be averred that by the fine manner they have displayed, and by the admirable facility of their execution, these artists have rendered more important services to art than have been performed by all the other masters from Cimabue downwards. It has accordingly always been remarked in Rome, and so continues to be, that the designers working in that city are more frequently to be seen employed about the works of Polidoro and Maturino than about those of all the other modern painters.

In the Borgo Nuovo these masters painted a façade in the manner called graffito, with another at the corner of the Pace in a similar manner; and at no great distance from the last-mentioned, at the house of the Spinoli namely, as you go towards the Parione, they painted a fagade whereon are represented games performed, and sacrifices offered after the custom of the ancients, with the death of Tarpia. Near the Torre di Nona, likewise, on the side towards the bridge of Sant’ Angelo, there is a small fagade of their work, representing the Triumph of Camillus, with a Sacrifice after the antique. In the road which leads to the Madonna del Ponte there is also an exceedingly beautiful fa9ade by these masters, with the story of Perillus, who is represented when about to be shut up in the brazen bull which he had fabricated; and here the force which is used by those who are compelling him to enter the bull, with the terror of the spectators who are Waiting to behold a manner of death so unwonted, are expressed with great ability. There is besides the seated figure of Phalaris (as I believe), who commands that execution with an expression of imperious determination, which is very beautifully rendered; thus showing that so he has resolved to punish the too ferocious invention of him who had contrived that new method of destroying life M'ith so fearful an addition of torment. This work is furthermore