Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/315

Rh folds, but the attributes and some of the heads are more than beautiful.

Having received a commission for a picture from the Director of the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, Rosso commenced the sketch accordingly; but in this there were many faces to which the artist had given a wild and desperate looking air in the sketch, as was his custom, but which he afterwards invariably softened and brought to the proper degree of expression in the finished work. But the Director, seeing this, and having very little acquaintance with matters of art, thought all the saints sketched in the picture no better than so many demons, and he rushed out of the house declaring that the artist had deceived him, and that he would have nothing to do with such a picture.

Over one of the doors in the cloister of the Servites this artist painted the Arms of Pope Leo, with two Children, but that work is destroyed. He also executed numerous pictures and portraits, which are still to be seen in the houses of the Florentine citizens. When Pope Leo arrived in Florence, a very beautitul Arch of Triumph was erected for the occasion by Rosso, at the corner of the Bischeri; and at a later period he painted a most admirable picture of the Dead Christ for the Signor di Piombino, for whom he also decorated a little chapel. At Volterra likewise, our artist depicted the Deposition from the Cross, a work of singular beauty.

His fame and credit increasing, Rosso undertook to complete the picture which had been commenced by Raffaello da XJrbino for the Dei family, but which had been abandoned by that master when he repaired to Rome. This work was executed with exceeding grace and beauty of design by Rosso, and exhibits also a very pleasing animation in the colouring; nor need any one expect to discover more power or