Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/46

34 with those of the Emperor Charles V., and with a figure representing Romulus, who is placing the papal tiara on the escutcheon of the Holy Father, and an imperial crown over that of the Emperor. The height of the figure of Romulus was five braccia; it was clothed in the antique manner, and had a crown on the head; on the right hand of Romulus stood the figure of Numa Pompilius, and on his left was that of Tullus Hostilius; over all were the words, QUIRINUS PATER. At each side of this gate, moreover, is a tower, and on the walls of those towers Battista furthermore depicted triumphal processions; that of the elder Scipio, decreed to him for Carthage, which he had subjected to the Roman dominion, being on the one side; and the Triumph of Scipio the younger, for the ruin and destruction of the same city, appearing on the other.

Two pictures were painted by the same artist on the exterior face of these towers; in one of them was seen Hannibal under the walls of Rome, but repelled by a tempest, and in the other, that on the left hand namely, was Flaccus entering Rome for the purpose of defending the city against the Carthaginians. All these works, being the first performed by Battista, and, as compared with those of the other masters, were considered very good and much extolled. Nor is there any doubt but that this artist would have surpassed many of his competitors had he begun from the first to paint, and gradually rendered himself familiar with the use of pencils and colours; but his having remained obstinately fixed in a certain opinion entertained by many, who persuade themselves that he who can design may also paint, was to him the source of no little injury. He acquitted himself, nevertheless, much better than did some of those who executed the stories for the Arch of San Marco, of which there were eight, four on each side that is to say, and the best of them were painted partly by Francesco Salviati and partly by a certain Martino, with other young Germans, who had also come to Rome for the purposes of study.

Nor will I omit to take this opportunity for relating that the above-named Martino, who possessed remarkable ability in the treatment of chiaro-scuro, here produced certain battlepieces and skirmishes between Christians and Turks, which