Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/450

438 them, and one in the distance; the Scourging; the Crowning with Thorns; the Ecce Homo; Pilate Washing his Hands; Christ Bearing his Cross, with fifteen figures; Christ Crucified, with eighteen figures; and the Deposition from the Cross. All these compositions, if cast, would certainly prove a work of extraordinary merit, seeing that it has been prepared with infinite care and labour.

Pope Pius IV. had intended to employ Guglielmo to execute one of the Gates of San Pietro, but His Holiness being overtaken by death, had not time to set the artist to work. Fra Guglielmo has been lately making models in wax, for the decoration of three altars in San Pietro. The Deposition of Christ from the Cross namely; St. Peter receiving the Keys of the Church; and the Descent of the Holy Spirit; which will doubtless be very beautiful stories. At a word, this artist has had and has many favourable occasions for distinguishing himself by fine works; and the rather as the office of the Piombo, producing a sufficient income, gives the recipient leisure for study, and permits him to labour for glory alone, which cannot be done by those who have not such an advantage. Yet, from 1547 to the present year of 1567, Fra Guglielmo has produced no finished work. For it is the peculiarity of this office that it renders him who holds it fat and lazy; the truth of which may be proved by the fact, that before he obtained it, Guglielmo had executed many busts and other works in marble besides those we have named. It is true that he has made four large figures of Prophets in stucco, which are in the niches between the piers of the first large arch of San Pietro, and did also employ himself to some extent for the Chariots used in the Festival of the Testaccio and other maskings which were held some years since in Pome.

A disciple of this artist was a certain German called Guglielmo, who, among other works, has executed a rich and beautiful frame, decorated with several figures in bronze which are imitations of the best antiques, for a Study (as they call it) in wood work, which the Count of Pitigliano presented to Duke Cosimo. These little figures are copies of the Equestrian Group on the Capital, of that on the Monte Cavallo of the Farnese Hercules, the Antinous and the Apollo of the Belvedere; to these were added the Heads