Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/393

Rh he executed all with infinite judgment, and finished them with the most attractive grace.

Having studied design with much profit in his childhood, and subsequently acquired great facility in carving, Simone Mosca was conducted to Rome by Antonio da San Gallo, to whom his genius and good abilities had become clearly apparent. Arrived in Rome, San Gallo set him for his first work to prepare certain capitals and bases with some friezes of foliage also, for the Church of San Giovanni of the Florentines. Antonio likewise entrusted to Simone a portion of the works required for the palace of Alessandro, the first Cardinal Farnese.f The disciple meanwhile devoted himself zealously, whenever he could steal a moment of time, to the delineation of the rich antiquities which abound in Rome, employing for that purpose more especially the festival days, and such other holidays as he could command, by which means it came to pass that no long period had elapsed before Simone drew and made plans with more grace, propriety, and beauty than did Antonio San Gallo himself; being thus wholly given up to his studies and perpetually occupied at every leisure moment in making designs from the antique, Simone successfully adopted the manner of the ancients, drawing his foliage entirely after their models, and giving the leaves that boldness and freedom of which we have before made mention: he bestowed much pains on the entire perforation of such works as were executed in stone, to the end that all might receive the ultimate perfection of which they were capable, taking from the ancient examples what each presented of best and most meritorious, and selecting one thing from one work and one from another, insomuch that in a few years he acquired a power and method of composition, so varied, so beautiful and so universally applicable, that he ever afterwards did everything well, whether working with his companions or labouring alone.

Among other proofs of his ability may be cited certain escutcheons of arms which were to be placed in the abovenamed Church of San Giovanni de’ Fiorentini, in the Strada Giulia, and on one of which there was to be made a large