Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/322

314 who bestirred himself in such sort, with the aid of the Aretine Giovanni Antonio Lappoli and of such kinsmen and friends as they had, that Rosso was appointed to paint in fresco the ceiling in the Madonna delle Lagrime, which had previously been confided to the painter Niccolo Soggi. The price fixed for the monument of his skill, which Rosso was thus to leave in that city, was three hundred gold scudi, and he commenced his cartoons for the same in a room which had been made over to him in a place called the Murello, where he completed them. In one of these he represented our first Parents fastened to the tree of the fall, and Our Lady is taking their sin from their mouth in the form of the apple: beneath the feet of the Virgin is the serpent, and in the air above (the painter proposing to indicate that the Virgin is clothed with tfie sun and moon) are nude figures of Phoebus and Diana.

In the second cartoon is Moses bearing the Ark of the Covenant, which is represented by the Madonna surrounded by five Virtues. In the third is the Throne of Solomon, also prefigured by the Madonna, to whom are presented votive offerings, which signify those who have recourse to her for aid and favour, with other fanciful inventions, which were elaborated by the fine genius of Messer Giovanni Pollastra a Canon of Arezzo, and the friend of Rosso, in compliment to whom that master prepared an exceedingly beautiful model of the whole work, which is now in my own house at Arezzo. He likewise designed a study of nude figures for this work, which is a truly beautiful thing; and had the proposed undertaking been carried forward, and painted in oil instead of in fresco, as was intended, it would have been a perfect miracle. But Rosso was ever an enemy to fresco, and therefore delayed the execution of the cartoons, with the intention of having them ultimately done by Raffaello dal Colle and other artists, until the end of the matter was that they were never finished at all.