Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/234

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“On the corbel, between the wall at ‘ the foot ’ and that at ‘the right,’ shall be painted Brizzo, the Goddess of auguries and interpreter of dreams. I do not find her dress depicted, but she may have the form of a Sybil, seated at the foot of the Elm described by Virgil, as concealing innumerable images amidst its leaves, suffering the same to fall from its branches and hover around the Goddess; and these shall be of more or less distinctness, as above said, some darker, some lighter, some broken, and others almost wholly imperceptible, thereby to represent the visions, dreams, oracles, phantoms, and other nonentities, seen while sleeping. These five modes of such appearances are indicated by Macrobius, and Brizzo is to appear absorbed in the care of interpreting them: she must be surrounded by men who offer her baskets filled with every kind of gifts, fish only excepted. On the corbel between the wall of ‘the head’ and that of ‘the right,’ may be conveniently placed Harpocrates the God of Silence, seeing that he, being the first object perceived by those who enter the room, will thus warn them to make no noise. The figure of Harpocrates is a youth or boy of a somewhat dusky colour, as being a God of the Egyptians; he must press one finger on his lip to command silence, and may have a branch of the peach-tree in his hand, adding, if you please, a garland of its leaves; they feign that he was born with weak legs, and that having been killed, his mother Isis restored him to life. Some, therefore, paint him extended on the earth; others, lying in the lap of his mother, with his limbs bound up: but I would have him standing up and supported in some fashion, or seated perhaps, as is that one which belongs to the Cardinal Sant’ Angelo, and which has wings, with a Cornucopia. He must have figures around him, presenting him, as was the custom, with first fruits of lentils and other vegetables, but more particularly of peaches. Some make this God as a figure without a face, wearing a small cap on the head, and clothed in the skin of a wolf, all covered with eyes and ears. Take whichever of these two you like best.

“On the last corbel, between the wall of ‘the head’ and