Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/284

276 attended to, seeing that they undertook and set on foot a work of infinite labour and long-enduring pains, but of very little grace, as experience has sufficiently proved. The design of Giuliano, as we perceive, was to erect pilasters at the angles of all the eight sides, and these were to bend around the angles, and the whole work was to be composed in the Ionic Order; but as in the ground plan these pilasters, as well as every other part of the work, required to be diminished towards the centre of the choir, and were not of equal size, they were necessarily made broader on the exterior side of the fabric, while they were narrowed within. This has the effect of distorting the proportions, and as the pilaster is formed in accordance with the angles of the eight sides of the interior wall, it thence becomes so greatly diminished towards the centre that the two columns which stand one on each side of the pilaster cause the latter to appear disproportionately slender, thereby contributing to the ungraceful effect of that portion, as well as every other part of the work, not only as regards the external side of the structure, but as respects the interior also, and this notwithstanding the fact that the measurements are there correct.

Giuliano likewise prepared the model for every part of the altar, which he erected at the distance of a braccio and a half from the marble incrustation of the choir, and for which Bandinelli afterwards modelled a group in wax, representing the Dead Christ accompanied by two Angels, one of whom holds the right arm of the Saviour, and supports his head on one knee, while the other bears the Mysteries of the Passion.* The figure of Christ occupied almost the whole of the altar; insomuch, that there would scarcely have been left room for the celebration of the mass, Baccio proposing to make the statue of about four braccia and a half in height. Behind the altar, and connected by its centre with the same, Baccio likewise erected a pedestal, with a seat or throne, whereon was placed the figure of the Almighty Father in the act of extending his benediction to the people.

This figure, six braccia high, was accompanied by two Angels, each four braccia high, which were placed in a kneeling position at the nota