Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/235

Rh that of ‘the left,’ will be appropriately represented Angerona, the Goddess of Secresy, seeing that she will be thus conveniently placed for admonishing all who leave the Chamber to keep whatever they may have heard and seen there secret, as it behoves them to do who serve the great. Her figure is that of a woman placed on an Altar, with the mouth tied and sealed. I know not what vestments are given her, but I would wrap her in one long robe, covering her from head to foot, and fastened on the shoulders. Let there be priests around her, since these were accustomed to offer sacrifice to her in the Curia, to the end that she might prevent all men from betraying, to the injury of the Republic, whatever had passed there.

“There now remains only to add, that I would have the whole work surrounded by a frieze of grottesche or Stories of minute figures; the subjects being in harmony with those above described. In the Stories 1 would have such things exhibited as are done by men, and even by animals, at the hour pre-supposed; thus, as appropriate to the Dawn, I would have artists, mechanics, and workmen of every kind, who, having risen thus early, are about to re-commence their labours. Smiths to their anvils, the learned to their studies, the hunter to the chase, and the muleteer to the road. But, above all, I would here have that little old woman, whom Petrarch describes, as with skirts tucked up and barefoot, she has risen to begin her spinning, and is first lighting her fire. Or, if you like to make grottesche of animals, let them be singing-birds, geese going forth to the pasture, cocks announcing the morn, and such like messengers of the day. In the frieze of the wall at ‘the foot,’ you might make, as in harmony with the darkness, people who go birdcatching by candle-light, spies, adulterers, and rogues who clamber into windows; then for grottesche you may take porcupines, hedgehogs, owls, and badgers, with a peacock expanding its tail, which signifies a star-lighted night: also, bats, screech-owls, horned owls, and such like. For the frieze of the right hand wall, as things in harmony with the Moon, you might have fishers of the night, and those who steer by the compass, with necromancers, witches, and such like; for grottesche, a distant light-house, nets still wet, and with fish within them, crabs, which seek their food