Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/303

Rh this our age has caused her wonders to be placed before us by such men.

Beneath the Corte Cavella, in the house bought by the Signora Costanza, Polidoro and Maturino painted a story showing how the Sabines were borne away by the Romans, and in this work we have not only the desire and necessity felt by the men of Rome to carry otf these women, but also the wretchedness and terror of the poor creatures so borne away; some who were thus captured are in the act of attempting flight, others are being borne along by the different soldiers, some on horseback, some in other ways. Nor is it in this story only that we And these evidences of thought, they are to be perceived in an equal or perhaps greater degree in that of Mutius, in that of the Horatius, and in the Flight of Porsenna, king of Tuscany.

For the garden of Messer Stefano dal Buffalo, which is near the fountain of Trevi, these masters painted exceedingly beautiful pictures representing the fountain of Parnassus, decorating the same place moreover with grottesche or arabesques, and with small figures very beautifully painted. In the house of Baldassino da Sant’ Agostino, they likewise executed graffiti, and pictures of various kinds, with heads of the emperors, which they painted over the windows in the court-yard. On Montecavallo, near the Church of Sant’ Agata, there is a façade by Polidoro and Maturino, whereon they have depicted a vast number of stories much varied in subject; among others is that of the Vestal Tuzia bearing water from the Tiber to the temple of Vesta in a sieve, with that of Claudia, who is drawing the ship with her girdle. The commotion excited by Camillus when Brennus is weighing the gold is also represented on this fa9ade. On another wall of the same building, Romulus and his brother are seen nursed by the wolf, with the terrible combat of Horatius, who is defending the entrance of the bridge alone and with his single arm, against the swords of thousands; behind him is a crowd of figures beautifully drawn and in the most