Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/525

Rh window of the chapel of San Bernardo, which is one of those in the church of San Lorenzo in the same city, and which he designed and painted entirely alone.

But to return to Giovan Battista: having gone hack to Modena on the completion of these works, that artist painted two large pictures on the walls of the church of San Piero, for which Niccolò had painted the altar piece; the subject of these two pictures being scenes from the lives of San Piero andSan Paolo.

The same city of Modena has produced certain sculptors worthy of being enumerated among good artists. For, to say nothing of II Modanino, of whom we have made mention in another place, there was a master called Il Modana, who has produced most admirable works in terra-cotta, some of the size of life and others still larger. Among these may be enumerated those executed for a chapel in the church of San Domenico, in Modena, with others for the Dormitory of San Piero, a monastery belonging to the Black Friars, and also situate in Modena. This last-mentioned work is a Group consisting of Our Lady, with San Benedetto, Santa Justina, and another Saint; and to all the figures composing it the master has given the colour of marble in such perfection that they might be taken for that material. They have all very beautiful expression in the faces moreover, with admirable proportion in the forms, and very fine drapery. Il Modana has executed a similar group in the Dormitory of San Giovanni Evangelista, at Parma, and on the outside of the church of San Benedetto, in Mantua, he has executed a considerable number of figures the size of life, and in full relief; these are placed in niches along the front, and beneath the portico, they are exceedingly beautiful, and imitate marble so perfectly that the spectator cannot but suppose them to be of that stone.