Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/435

Rh himself of the services of Domenico, wlio was at that time in higher repute than any other painter of Verona, Liberale being then at Siena.

In the interior of the above-named chapel, then, Domenico painted the Miracles of St. Anthony of Padua, to whom it is dedicated, and placed therein the portrait of Messer Niccolb; this is an old man with white hair and shaven beard, he is without any covering for the head, but wears a long vestment of cloth of gold, such as it was the custom at that time for knights to wear. This, for a work in fresco, is very well designed and executed. In the exterior vaulting lastly, which is richly gilded, are circular compartments wherein our artist painted the four Evangelists; and on the pilasters, both those of the interior and exterior, he executed ligures of saints, among others that of Sant’ Elizabetta of the third Order of San Francesco, with those of Sant’ Elena and Santa Caterina, all exceedingly beautiful and much commended for the excellence of the design, the beauty of the colouring, and the grace imparted to the whole work. This performance may at a word be considered as affording good testimony to the merits of Domenico as well as to the liberality of the knight Messer Niccolò de’ Medici.

Domenico Moroni died at a very advanced age; he was buried in the church of San Bernardino, wherein are the works by his hand above alluded to, and left his son Francesco Moroni, heir to his property as well as to his endowments. It was under the discipline of his father that this Francesco acquired the first rudiments of his art, but he afterwards devoted himself with so much assiduity to the study of the same that he became a much better master than his father had been: of this we have convincing proof in the works which Francesco executed in emulation of those performed by his father. In the above-named church of San Bernardino for example, and beneath the picture executed by his father for the altar of the Monte, Francesco painted two folding doors, erected to close in the work of Liberale,