Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/441

Rh within a circular frame-work; and on the same wall, but lower down, and over the entrance to a confessional, is a figure of San Francesco by the same master, and also within a circular frame, similar to that of San Bernardino; they are both beautiful, and exceedingly well done. These are all the works that Paolo is known to have executed in fresco. Among those painted in oil, is a figure of San Rocco, at the altar of the Purification, in the church of the Madonna della Scala, and this he did in rivalry of the San Sebastiano, painted in the same place by II Moro. Now this San Rocco is a very beautiful figure; but the best ever painted by this master is one in the church of San Bernardino, where all the large pictures surrounding that on the tympan of the altar of the cross are by his hand, that of the Crucifix, with the Madonna and San Griovanni, which is above all the rest, alone excepted, and this is by the hand of Francesco his master.

But near to and above the Crucifix by Francesco, Paolo Cavazzuola painted two large pictures, one representing Christ bound to the column and scourged; the other showing the Coronation of Our Lord, and comprising a considerable number of figures somewhat larger than life. Lower down, in the first range, and forming the principal picture thereof, is a Deposition from the Cross, with the Madonna, the Magdalen, Nicodemus, and Joseph. In one of these figures, a young man with a red beard, standing near the shaft of the cross presents the portrait of the master himself; he wears a head-dress of the form usually worn in those days, and is depicted with such truth to the life, that he appears to be indeed a breathing man. On the right hand side, our artist represented the Saviour in the Garden, with the three Disciples near him; and on the left is Our Lord