Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/314

306 in art, having a certain opinion of his own, which did not entirely accord with the manner pursued by them. This is at once perceived in his works, and an example of it may be seen in a Tabernacle painted by him in fresco at Marignolle, which is at some little distance from the Gate of San Piero Gattolini at Florence: here Posso depicted a figure of the Saviour after his Death, for Pietro Bartoli; and in this work he began to show the great desire which he felt for the attainment of a grander and bolder style, and for a more graceful and beautiful manner than had been exhibited by others.

When Lorenzo Pucci was raised to the rank of Cardinal by Pope Leo, the Escutcheon of the Pucci family was painted over the door of San Sebastiano by Rosso, who was then but a youth, with two figures, which at that time awakened astonishment in all the artists who beheld them, seeing that so fine a performance had not been expected from him His courage increasing with success. Rosso, who had painted a half-length figure of Our Lady, with a head of San Giovanni Evangelista for Maestro Jacopo, a Monk of the Servites, allowed himself to be persuaded by the latter, who gave much of his attention to poetry, to attempt certain works in the cloister of the Servite monastery. Thereupon he commenced an Assumption of the Virgin, near the Visitation, which had been painted by Jacopo da Pontormo, and herein he depicted a Choir of Angels in Heaven; they are in the form of naked children, and, making a circle, they hover around Our Lady in graceful attitudes, dancing and wheeling about in the air; these figures are admirably foreshortened, and had the colouring of Rosso then attained to the maturity of art which it afterwards exhibited, there is no doubt that he would have greatly surpassed all the works previously executed in that place, seeing that he fully equalled them in grandeur of conception and excellence of design. It is true that the figures of the Apostles which he has painted there are too heavily loaded with draperies, and these last are too ample in their