Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/377

Rh best of all were the figures of Michelagnolo and the Prince, which were so full of animation that the old man appeared to be truly speaking, and the youth to be attentively listening to his words.

In another picture, nine braccia high and twelve long, which was opposite to the Tabernacle of the Sacrament, Bernardo Timante Buontalenti, a painter much favoured by the most Illustrious Prince, had painted the Rivers of the three principal parts of the world, representing these River-gods as having all come, downcast and sorrowful, to lament and condole with the Arno for their common loss. These rivers were the Nile, the Ganges, and the Po; the first had the Crocodile for his symbol, with a sheaf of corn to intimate the fertility of his country: the Ganges had the Gryphon and a coronal of gems; and the Po a Swan, with a chaplet of black amber. The River-gods, conducted into Tuscany by Fame, whose figure was seen hovering above them, were standing around the Arno, who was crowned with cypress, and, holding aloft his exhausted urn in the one hand, had a branch of cypress in the other: beneath the feet of the Arno was a Lion. Then, to intimate that the spirit of Michelagnolo had ascended to the regions of bliss, the judicious painter had depicted a Story or Splendour in Heaven, significant of the celestial light; and' towards this the soul of Michelagnolo, in the form of a little angel, was seen ascending, with the following verse:—

On each side of this picture were pedestals with statues holding back a curtain, within which those River-gods, the soul of Michelagnolo, and the figure of Fame appeared. The statues on the pedestals had figures beneath their feet, that on the right of the Rivers respecting Vulcan. He has a torch in one hand; and beneath him, in an attitude of much constraint, is Hatred, labouring to free himself from the weight imposed on his neck by the foot of his conqueror.

The Symbol of this group was a Vulture with the verse which follows: —

Signifying that supernatural, nay, almost divine excellence,