Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/413

Rh small figures only; wherefore, to prove that he was thereby wronged and calumniated, he painted a picture for the chapel of the Madonna in San Fermo, which belongs to a monastery of Franciscan Monks, making the figures larger than life, and painting them so well that they were the best ever depicted by his hand. In the upper part of this work is Our Lady reclining on the lap of Sant’ Anna, with Angels who are reposing amidst the clouds, and beneath are San Piero, San Giovanni Battista, San Pocco, and San Sebastiano; in the distance is a beautiful landscape, with San Francesco, who is receiving the Stigmata: a picture which has not failed to be held by artists in due estimation.

In San Bernardino, a place of the Barefooted Friars, Giovan Francesco painted a figure of Jesus Christ in the chapel of the cross; our Saviour is represented kneeling before the Madonna, of whom he is taking leave. This work he performed in emulation of the many renowned pictures by the hand of other masters, which are in that place, and made great efforts to surpass them all. He consequently acquitted himself exceedingly well, and was extolled by all who beheld his work, the intendant of the monastery alone excepted: this man, like the dunce and solemn owl that he was, reproved the artist with bitter words, declaring that he had made the Saviour show too little reverence to his mother, seeing that he knelt to her on one knee only, to which Giovan Francesco replied, and said, “Father, do me first the kindness to kneel down and rise up again, and then I will tell you wherefore I have depicted the Saviour thus.” The intendant, after many persuasions, at length knelt down, putting first the right knee to the earth and then the left, and in rising again he lifted first the left knee and then the riglit. This being done, Giovanni Francesco said, “Have you remarked. Father Intendant, that you did not kneel down with both knees at once, and that you have not risen up from both knees at one time? I tell you therefore, that this my figure of Christ is as it should be, since he may be taken to be in the act of kneeling before liis mother, or, having been kneeling for a time, he is about to