Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/164

156 saints. The two last-named works were executed by Lappoli in a much better manner than those previously painted by him, and the cause of this improvement was that he had enjoyed the opportunity of examining at his entire leisure many works in relief and casts of statues by Michelagnolo, with various works of antiquity which had been brought by Giorgio Vasari to Arezzo, and were there to be seen in his house.

Other pictures of the Virgin, by his hand with some on other subjects, are scattered about Arezzo, and in the neighbouring places; there is more particularly a Judith placing the head of Holofernes in a basket, which is held towards her by a serving woman, her handmaiden; this is now in the possesion of Messer Bernardetto Minerbetti, bishop of Arezzo, by whom Giovan-Antonio was greatly favoured, as indeed are all other artists of ability. Messer Benedetto had, besides other works by Lappoli, an almost entirely nude figure of San Giovanni in the Wilderness; the saint is depicted as a youth and the work is much prized by the bishop, nor undeservedly so, seeing that it is an exceedingly good one.

Finally, perceiving that perfection in art is to be attained in no other way than by an early and effectual study of the nude form, with careful endeavours to cultivate ample powers of invention—perceiving these, I say, to be the only means whereby the difficulties of art are overcome, and facility in execution obtained, Giovan-Antonio repented him of the hours which he had spent, not in the studies proper to his art, but in the pursuit of pleasure; discovering as he did, that in old age men cannot effect that which they might very well have performed in their youth. But though conscious, to a certain extent, of the error thus committed, he was perhaps not fully aware of it until having at length, and when advanced in years resigned himself to study, he beheld Giorgio Vasari complete an oil painting, fourteen braccia long and six and a half high, in forty-two days; the subject of this work, which was the marriage of Esther and of the King Ahasuerus, requiring more than sixty figures, all larger than life. It was painted by Vasari for the refectory belonging to the monks of the abbey of Santa Fiore in Arezzo.