Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/403

Rh Angelo, invited Mosca to Rome, where he availed himself of the sculptor’s services in many works, employing him among other things in the restoration of certain apartments in that castle. Over the arches which form the entrance into the new Loggia which looks towards the meadows for example, Messer Tiberio caused Simone to execute two escutcheons in marble, of the arms of the above-named Pope, and in these the artist succeeded to admiration. The mitre or triple crown, and the keys, with certain festoons and small masks which make part of this work, are so delicately finished and so skilfully detached from the ground of the marble beneath them, that they are truly wonderful.

Returning subsequently to Orvieto for the purpose of completing the before-mentioned chapel of the cathedral, Simone laboured at the same during all the time that Pope Paul lived, conducting it in such a manner that it proved to be equally beautiful with that first mentioned, as may be seen; nay, perhaps it is even more so, seeing that Mosca, as we have said, bore so perfect a love to his art, and found so much pleasure in his labours, that he could never have working enough, and constantly, sought to effect what may be truly called the impossible. Nor was this from a desire to accumulate wealth; on the contrary it was purely from love of art and desire for glory, Simone being far more anxious to labour worthily in his vocation than to render himself rich.

In the year 1550, Julius III. was elected to the papal chair, and men began to think that they ought earnestly to set hand to the fabric of San Pietro; Mosca then repaired to Rome, where he made an attempt to enter into an agreement with the superintendents in respect to the execution of certain capitals in marble, but more to accommodate and provide occupation for his son-in-law, Giovan Domenico, than for any other motive.

It having then chanced that Giorgio Vasari, who had ever borne a great love to Mosca, encountered the latter in Rome, whither Giorgio also had been invited to enter the service of the Pope;—Giorgio Vasari, I say, thought beyond all doubt to have employment which he could offer to Mosca, and the rather as the old Cardinal di Monte had at his death left directions to his heirs to the effect that they should cause a marble sepulchre to be constructed to his (the Cardinal’s)