Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/553

Rh sons, on the point of being thrown into a well by another King, or rather tyrant.

The Story was arranged in such sort that the frame-work of the Chapel, which is a half circle, was made to represent the Gate of a large Palace of rustic architecture, and through this gate a view was obtained into a square court surrounded by columns and pilasters of the Doric order, between which was seen a wall of eight sides; the ascent to the same being by a flight of steps: up these steps the myrmidons of the tyrant were bearing the two sons of San Sigismondo, whom they were about to cast naked into the well. Within the Loggia on one side, I depicted the people regarding that frightful spectacle; and, on the other, the left namely, are executioners, who, having seized the wife of King Sigismond, are dragging her towards her death: near the principal door is a group of soldiers binding San Sigismondo, whose resigned and patient attitude proves him to suffer that martyrdom willingly; he is looking upwards at angels who are hovering in the air, and showing him the palms and crowns of martyrdom prepared for his queen and children as well as for himself, a sight which appears to be mightily sustaining and consoling to him.

I also took great pains to express the cruelty and fierceness of the wicked tyrant who stands at the upper end of the Court, observing the progress of his vengeance and the death of San Sigismondo. At a word, so far as in me lay, I strove to give every figure its appropriate expression and proper attitude, with promptitude of action and whatever else was required: the degree of my success I leave others to decide, but I may say that I gave all the labour, care, and study to the work that my utmost efforts could command.

Meanwhile Duke Cosimo desired that the Book of the Lives, already brought to conclusion by the aid of my friends, and with all the diligence that I could use—the Duke desired, I say, that this book should now be printed, whereupon I gave it to the ducal printer Lorenzo Torrentino, and the work was commenced. But the “Theories” had not