Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/171

Rh the Brotherhood of Santa Maria della Neve on the Monte San Savino: the men of this company desiring that he should paint them a picture to commemorate the snow, which, falling on the spot whereon stands the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, in Rome, on the 5th day of August, gave ocasion to the erection of that edifice. This work Niccolò completed for the persons above-mentioned with much care, and afterwards executed a painting in fresco at Marciano, which was very highly extolled.

In the year 1524, Messer Baldo Magini, having caused Antonio, the brother of Giuliano da Sangallo, to construct a marble tabernacle in the church of the Madonna delle Carceri, in the territory of Prato, the said Antonio thought to manage in such sort that Messer Baldo should give Niccolò Soggi the commission for the picture which was to adorn that tabernacle; a structure furnished by Antonio with columns, an architrave, cornice, and round arches, all of much beauty. The architect Sangallo had formed a friendship with Niccolò when he worked at Monte San Savino, in the palace of the Cardinal di Monte above-named, and now, having presented him to Messer Baldo Magini, the latter although he had intended to have the tabernacle painted by Andrea del Sarto, as w have related in another place, resolved at the request and by the advice of Antonio, to entrust the same to Niccolò Soggi. The artist commenced the work accordingly, and laboured with all his power to produce a meritorious performance, but he did not succeed by any means, seeing that, the care bestowed upon the painting excepted, there is neither excellence of design nor any other quality that very greatly deserves praise, to be perceived in it; for Niccolò, proceeding as he did with that hard manner of his, and toiling away over his models of clay and wax, has almost always brought his labours to a painful and displeasing conclusion.

It is true that there was no man who would do more than Niccolò, as regarded the labours of art, nor was there one who worked with more love and diligence, and as he knew that none. .   .    .    he could never for many