Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/67

Rh depicted figures of Sant’ Agostino and San Filippo, with Cain slaying his brother Abel beneath. At the altar of the Sacrament in the Church of San Felice, in the ceiling of the Tribune that is to say, Tintoretto painted the four Evangelists, and in the Lunette over the altar he depicted an Annunciation. On another Lunette in the same place, he represented our Saviour Christ in Prayer on the Mount of Olives; and on the wall is the Last Supper of our Lord with his Disciples, by the same hand. In San Francesco della Vigna this artist painted a Deposition from the Cross; Our Lady is in a swoon, the other Maries stand around her, and there are also figures of certain Prophets.

In the Scuola of San Marco near SS. Giovanni e Paolo are four large pictures by Tintoretto; the first exhibits San Marco appearing in the air and delivering a man who was his votary from grievous torments, which an executioner is seen to be preparing for him; but the irons which the tormentors are endeavouring to apply break short in their hands, and cannot be turned against that devout man. This picture exhibits a great number of figures, many well executed foreshortenings, much armour, with buildings, portraits from the life, and other objects of similar kind, which render the work one of infinite interest. The second picture also displays the figure of San Marco as floating in the air, and delivering one of his votaries from peril; the danger in this case has arisen from a storm at sea but the painting is not executed with the care perceptible in that previously named.

In the third picture is a torrent of rain, with the dead body of one who has in like manner been devoted to San Marco, and whose soul is seen to be ascending into heaven; here also we have a composition, the figures of which are not without a fair share of merit. In the fourth painting, in which San Marco expels an unclean spirit, there is the perspective view of an extensive Loggia, at the end whereof is a fire by which the Loggia is illuminated, and the reflec-