Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/533

Rh some other plates the same artist has represented numerous Germans proceeding to a party of pleasure with their wives; with figures of Satyrs which are exceedingly fanciful and beautiful.

By...... are to be seen very carefully executed engravings of the four Evangelists, and equally beautiful are twelve stories of the Prodigal Son, engraved with much care by the hand of M... Finally, Francesco Flori, a painter of great renown in those parts, has produced a large number of works which have been afterwards engraved, and for the most part by the hand of Jeronimo Cocca. Among these engravings are ten plates exhibiting the Labours of Hercules, with a large one representing the various phases of human life; one exhibits the Horatii and the Curiatii already engaged in the lists and in combat; another presents the Judgment of Solomon, and there is one of a Battle between Hercules and the Pigmies. By the same engraver likewise is a plate of Cain, who has slain his brother Abel, with Adam and Eve, who are weeping over the body of the dead; as also one of Abraham, who is on the point of sacrificing Isaac his son, with many other plates exhibiting so much varied fancy that one cannot but feel amazement as well as admiration on perceiving that such things are produced from plates of copper and blocks of wood. Nay, the engravings to be seen in this our book of the portraits of the painters, sculptors, and architects namely, may of themselves suffice to exemplify what we have here remarked, designed as they are by Giorgio Vasari and his scholars, and engraved by Maestro Cristofano Coriolano, who has executed and still continues to produce numerous works in Venice, which are entirely worthy to be held in remembrance.

But above all is to be considered the advantage and pleasure obtained by the Ultramontane peoples and nations