Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/47

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From this hall we proceed to a room which forms an angle of the palace, and the vaulting of which is beautifully divided into compartments by stucco-work; the cornices also are beautifully varied, and in some places are heightened with gold. The whole surface is divided by these compartments into four octangular spaces which surround a painting occupying the highest part of the vaulted ceiling and representing the Marriage of Cupid and Psyche in the presence of all the gods, Jupiter himself being seen in the summit of the picture seated in a dazzling splendour of celestial light. This story is such that it would not be possible to discover anything more admirably designed, or executed in a more graceful manner: the foreshortenings of those figures in particular have been managed with so much judgment that although some of them are scarcely a braccio in length, they have nevertheless the appearance as seen, from the floor below, of being three braccia high, they are indeed executed with marvellous art and ingenuity, the master having found means to produce such effect that they seem to be alive (so much relief has he given them), and with the truthfulness of their appearance they pleasantly deceive the eye that regards them. In the octangles are the principal events in the history of Psyche, with the sufferings which she endured from the anger of Venus, all executed with the same beauty and perfection: the angles of the windows exhibit numerous Loves, which are distributed according to the space at the disposal of the artist; the whole ceiling being painted in oil by the above-named Benedetto and Rinaldo. The remainder of the pictures from the history of Psyche are on the walls beneath and are painted in fresco, they are much larger than those on the ceiling. In one of these stories is Psyche in the Bath; she is surrounded by the Loves who are gracefully laving her beautiful limbs; near this is another picture, where, with gestures equally graceful, the Loves are drying the delicate form. In another part of the work is