Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/251

Rh

While Baccio was employed with these works, he occupied himself with drawing, as was his custom, and for Marco da Ravenna and Agostino Veneziano the engravers, he designed a story in a very large plate, which he caused them to engrave. The subject of this work is the Slaughter of the Innocents, cruelly put to death by Herod; and the plate being crowded with nude figures, male and female, with children living and dead, to say nothing of the varied attitudes exhibited by the women and soldiery, gave occasion for the display of Baccio’s power of design, and of his knowledge of anatomy, and the action of the muscles on all the limbs, procuring him very great fame on that account, throughout all Europe. This artist likewise prepared a very beautiful model in wood, with the figures in wax, for the sepulchral monument of the king of England, the work was nevertheless not executed by Bandinelli, but was given to Benedetto da Rovezzano, who cast it in metal.