Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/302

294 enrielied by a most beautiful frieze of children and other figures, painted to imitate bronze. Higher up in the street, and on the façade of the house where the figure called the Image of the Bridge is placed, Polidoro and Maturino depicted historical representations, the figures of which are clothed in the old Roman vestments, many of them wearing the senatorial habit.

On the piazza of the Dogana and near the church of Sant’ Eustachio, there is a faQade whereon these artists have depicted battle-pieces; and within the church above-named, in a small chapel near the entrance and on the right hand, are certain figures painted by Polidoro. Above the Farnese palace also the two artists painted a fagade, that of the Cepperelli palace namely, with one behind the Minerva, in the street that leads to the Maddaleni; in the last-named of which are stories from the Roman history. Among other beautiful parts of this work may be specified a Triumphal Procession of Children, painted to represent bronze; these are finished with the most perfect grace, and exhibit the very perfection of beauty. On the façade of the Boni Auguri, which is near the Minerva, are stories by these artists from the life of Romulus, which are very fine; they exhibit the hero when he is tracing out the limits of his future city with the plough, and also at the moment when the vultures are flying over his head: in this work, the figures, faces, and vestments of the ancient Romans are imitated with such remarkable exactitude, that the spectator cannot but believe himself to be gazing on the very men themselves in their living persons.

In this branch of art it is indeed certain that none have’ ever shown equal mastery, none have ever exhibited so much beauty of design, so fine a manner, such perfect facility, and such remarkable promptitude, as have distinguished these masters; their works are considered with increased admiration by all artists each time that they behold them, and every one is struck with astonishment at the manner in which nature in