Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/14

2 idleness, and the other spent his time in vainly racking his brains about mosaics.

But to speak first of David, who was much beloved by Domenico his brother, and who also loved him exceedingly, both living and dead; David, I say, finished many works which had been commenced by Domenico, some of which he completed in company with Benedetto, more particularly the picture for the High Altar of Santa Maria Novella, the back part that is to say, which is now turned towards the choir: the gradino of the picture was finished in small figures by some of the disciples of Domenico; by Niccolaio namely, who, beneath the figure of San Stefano, represented with much care and pains a Disputation, in which that saint was engaged; by Francesco Granacci, and by Jacopo del Tedesco, who, together with Benedetto Ghirlandajo, completed the figure of Sant’Antonino, Archbishop of Florence, with that of Santa Caterina da Siena. These artists likewise finished a picture in the body of the Church, Santa Lucia namely, with the head of a Monk, which was placed nearly in the centre of the building, to say nothing of other pictures and paintings of various kinds which are dispersed among the houses of the citizens.

Benedetto subsequently spent many years in France, where he laboured to some purpose and made large gains, insomuch that he ultimately returned to Florence with many privileges and gifts, whereby the king of the first-named country had borne testimony to the estimation in which his abilities had been held there. Finally, having given his attention not only to painting but to military matters, Benedetto died in the fiftieth year of his age.

Now David, although he worked and designed not a little, did, nevertheless, not greatly surpass Benedetto, a circumstance that may have arisen from the fact that he was too