Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/98

90 and even sorrow, since but for that misfortune it is manifest that herein we should have had one of the most precious possessions of which Rome can boast.

About this time, the Church of San Marcello in Rome, which is a Monastery of the Servite Monks, was in process of re-construction by Jacopo Sansovino, a work which still remains unfinished; but the walls of some few of the chapels had been erected, and the roofs of these having been raised, the Monks gave a commission to Perino, whom they ordered to paint two figures, one in each of two niches, which are formed on the right and left of a Madonna (the object of peculiar devotion in that church), San Giuseppe namely, with San Filippo, who had been a Brother of the Servites, and the Founder of their order. That work being finished, Perino painted several most beautiful figures of boys above it, and in the centre of that side of the chapel he placed one standing upright on a square pedestal, and bearing on his shoulders the ends of two festoons, which he directs towards the corners of the chapel, where there are two other boys who support the same; these children are seated with the legs crossed, in an attitude of infantine grace, which is very pleasing: the boys here described are indeed painted in so fine a manner, they display so much art, they are so graceful, and the tint of the soft and fresh-looking limbs is so perfect, that they look rather like the living flesh than a thing painted, and may of a truth be considered the best and most admirable work ever executed by any artist in fresco. And the cause of that superiority is as follows: in these figures the glance of the eyes has life, in the attitudes there is movement, and the mouth shows itself to be on the point of speaking, as if it would declare that Art has therein surpassed Nature, or rather, that the latter confesses herself unable to do more than is there done by Art.

This work was considered to be of such remarkable excellence in the opinion of all who understood the matter,