Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/438

430 ments. They comprise all those Brethren of the Order of San Benedetto who have been exalted to the pontificate. Around the sacristy and beneath the above-named lunettes, there is a frieze of the depth of four feet, and divided into compartments, wherein are represented figures of emperors, kings, dukes, and other princes, who, having abandoned their sovereign condition, have made themselves Monks of that Order. Among these figures, Francesco portrayed from the life many of the monks who were dwelling in the convent while he was occupied with this work, or who were making their temporary abode in that monastery. Many of the novices also, and other monks of all kinds are here depicted, all heads of extraordinary beauty and executed with the utmost care.

This sacristy, by the ornaments thus given to it, was of a truth rendered the most beautiful then existing in all Italy, seeing that in addition to the effect derived from the grandeur and correctness of its proportions, and from the pictures above-named, which are singularly fine, there is also a range of seats enriched with intarsiatura and carvings representing perspective views, so admirably done, that in those times—nay, perhaps in our own also, indeed—it would scarcely be possible to find anything greatly superior to them. Fra Giovanni of Verona, by whom this part of the works was executed, was of a truth most excellent in that art, as we have already observed in the life of Rafiaello da Urbino, and as is fully proved by the examples of his skill to be found at Rome, in the papal palace, at the Monastery of Monte Oliveto di Chiusuri, in the Sienese territory, at many other convents of his order, and in various places besides.

But of all the works performed by Fra Giovanni, those of this sacristy may truly be called the best, and we may safely affirm, that whereas in the rest he did but excel other masters, in this work he surpassed himself. Among the various works carved by Fra Giovanni for the Sacristy of Santa