Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/472

464 the subject selected was the Madonna depicted after the ancient manner, and having on her right hand San Niccolò da Tolentino, with the archangel San Michele, who is slaying Lucifer, on the left. In the lunette above these figures is Our Lady clothing one of the saints in the sacerdotal habit, and surrounded by numerous angels. On the ceiling over these works, which are on panel and in oil, Giovan-Antonio painted in fresco a figure of San Jacopo, armed, and on a horse which is rapidly hastening forwards; the saint holds his sword boldly brandished in his hand, and beneath him are lying many Turks, some dead and others wounded.

Beneath these pictures and beside the altar of the same chapel, are Sant’ Antonio the abbot, and a figure of San Sebastiano bound naked to the column; they are in fresco, and are considered very good works.

In the cathedral of the same city of Siena, and on the right hand as you enter the church, there is an altar-piece, painted in oil by the hand of Razzi, in this we have the Madonna with the Divine Child on her knee; San Giuseppe is on one side, and San Calisto on the other; this work is also held to be a very beautiful one, and it is manifest that our artist gave much more attention to the colouring thereof than he usually bestowed on his paintings. For the Brotherhood of the Trinity he painted a very beautiful bier whereon they