Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/401

Rh angels: over the arch there is a cornice, which is continued from one pillar to another, even to the two last, which serve as a kind of outwork to the whole. In this part there is a figure of the Almighty Father, in mezzo-rilievo; and at the sides, where the arch rises over the pillars, are two figures, each representing the Goddess of Victory, and both also executed in mezzo-rilievo.

The whole of these decorations are so admirably composed and arranged, they are so finely sculptured, and exhibit so rich a profusion of embellishment, that one cannot sufficiently admire the delicate minutiee of the perforated marbles, and the excellence of perfection to which every detail has been conducted,—capitals, cornice, masks, festoons, all are truly beautiful, as are the candelabra, which form the completion of this certainly most admirable performance.

Simone Mosca thus dwelling in Orvieto, there availed himself of the aid of a son of his own, named Francesco, and called as a bye-name Moschino, who was then fifteen years old. Having been produced b}r Nature almost with the chisel in his hand, and endowed with extraordinary genius, this youth could effect almost anything that he desired to do, and that with the perfection of grace and beauty. Under the guidance of his father, therefore, he executed certain portions of this work almost miraculously; the angels holding the inscriptions betwmen the pillars, the figure of the Almighty Father, the Angels in the arch above the Adoration of the Magi executed by Raffaello da Montelupo, and finally the figures of Victory, which are on each side of the Lunette, were all by his hand, and caused every one who beheld them to remain astonished. It happened, moreover, that when the chapel was completed, the Wardens of the Cathedral commissioned Simone Mosca to construct another of similar character on the opposite side, to the end that the space about the chapel of the High Altar might be suitably occupied; directing him to adopt the same order of architecture with that of the one first executed, but to vary the figures: in the centre, for example, was to be placed a Visitation of Our Lady; and for this the commission was given to the abovenamed Moschino.