Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/534

522 from the life, of men most eminent for distinction in our arts. At the same time I painted a Birth of Christ in fresco, the figures life-size, for the Nuns of Santa Margherita, in a Chapel of their garden situate in Arezzo; and when I had thus expended the remainder of the summer and a part of the autumn in my native place, I departed for Rome. Most kindly received in that city by Messer Bindo Altoviti, and greatly favoured by him, I painted a picture in oil, representing the Deposition from the Cross, in figures the size of life, the Saviour being laid on the ground at the feet of the Virgin mother; while in the air is Phoebus veiling the face of the Sun, and Diana that of the Moon. In the Landscape thus obscured are seen Mountains rent by the earthquake which took place at the Crucifixion of our Lord; the dead bodies of Saints in different attitudes being seen to proceed from their tombs, some in one manner and some in another.

When this picture was finished, it had the good fortune not to displease the greatest sculptor, painter, and architect that ever lived in our times, or perhaps in those preceding them; and by his intervention, I was made known to the most illustrious Cardinal Farnese, to whom the work was shown by Giovio and Messer Bindo. For that Prelate, then, I was consequently commissioned to execute a picture, eight braccia high and four wide, which represented, according to his own fancy, the figure of Justice with the twelve Tables and a Sceptre, on the point of which is a Stork. The head of Justice bears a helmet of iron and gold, with three plumes of three different colours, the symbol of upright judgment. The upper part of the figure is undraped; at her waist she has the seven Vices, which are her enemies, bound to her girdle by chains of gold; these are Corruption, Ignorance, Cruelty, Fear, Treachery, Falsehood, and Calumny; on whose shoulders is raised the figure of Truth, wholly nude, and presented to Justice by Time, with a gift of two Doves, as emblematic of Innocence. Justice, meanwhile, is placing a crown of Oak-leaves on the head of Truth, as the symbol of strength of mind. All these things I expressed with the utmost care and to the best of my ability.