Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/60

48 Battista to acquire great credit and reputation; it was, indeed, the cause of his receiving another commission, seeing that the Barefooted Friars, who have their house at that place, and to whom is committed the care of the Church called Sant’ Jobbe in Canareio, caused Battista to paint a figure of Our Lady, in the Chapel belonging to the Foscari family, in that Church of Sant’ Jobbe. The Virgin is seated with the Divine Child in her arms, and on one side of her is San Marco; there is a female Saint on the other side, and in the air above are Angels scattering flowers. For the tomb of the Grerman merchant Cristofano Fuccheri, which is in the Church of San Bartolommeo, Battista painted a picture, wherein he represented the God Mercury, with figures of Abundance and Fame. He also painted a picture for Messer Antonio della Yecchia, a Venetian gentleman, representing Our Saviour Christ crowned with Thorns, and surrounded by Pharisees, who are deriding him: the figures are of the size of life, and are very beautiful.

Meanwhile, the steps which lead from the first floor upwards in the Palace of St. Marco, having been constructed of masonry, after the designs of Jacopo Sansovino, as will be related in the proper place, and having been adorned with various ornaments in stucco, which formed compartments for paintings, by the sculptor Alessandro, a disciple of Sansovino, Battista was employed to paint certain minute grotteschine^ over every part thus divided. In the larger spaces he painted a considerable number of figures in fresco, which have received a fair share of commendation from artists, and having completed these, he then decorated the ceiling of the A^estibule to that staircase. No long time afterwards, there were given, as we have said above, commissions for three pictures each, to the most renowned painters then in Venice, which were to be executed for the Library of San Marco, with the condition that he who should the most clearly distinguish himself in the opinion of those Magnificent Signori, should receive a collar or chain of gold, in addition to the