Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/186

178 in the interval. This circumstance caused so much grief to Tribolo, that he departed forthwith from Carrara, and returned to Tuscany, leaving the figures still in their unfinished state, in one of the chapels of the cathedral; where as before related, they yet remain.

On his way from Carrara to Florence, Tribolo paused at Pisa, to visit the sculptor, Maestro Stagio of Pietra Santa, who was his very intimate friend. This artist was at that time employed on two columns, with marble capitals very richly carved, which he was executing in the House of the Wardens of Works, for the Cathedral of that city, and on each of which there was to stand above the capital an angel, in marble, one braccio and three quarters high, holding a chandelier in his hand. Tribolo, therefore, being invited by Stagio to execute one of these angels, and having nothing in hand at the time, consented to do so, and finished it with all the perfection that could be given to a delicate work of those dimensions in marble; he succeeded so admirably well, indeed, that nothing better could possibly be desired: by the movement given to his figure, the angel having the appearance of one who had paused in his course to bear that light, and the nude members of the form are clearly perceived through certain draperies of transparent texture, which are seen to wave around it with so much grace, that in whatever aspect you view the figure, it presents a beauty bevond the power of words to describe.

But in the execution of this figure, Tribolo, who thought only of his delight in art, had expended much time, and not receiving from the superintendent such a sum for his work as he thought himself entitled to, he determined to do no more, and returned to Florence. Here he met withGiovanBattista della Palla, who at that time was not only causing all the paintings and sculptures which he could procure, to be