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For Pope Martin, likewise, he made a gold button which he wore in his cope, with figures in full-relief, and among them jewels of very great price a very excellent work; and likewise a most marvellous mitre of gold leaves in open-work, and among them many little figures in full-relief, which were held very beautiful.
As companions to this I present a pair of dwarf stones with full-relief heads of seraphs and cherubs an agreeable change from the same county. "To Sarah wife of Henry Bower, died 1741. To Henry Bower, died March 23rd, 1758." The Rector of the parish passed as I was sketching these interesting objects, and was surprised to find that he had anything so unusual in his churchyard.
And for the subject they chose the story of Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac, wherein they thought that the said masters should be able to show their powers with regard to the difficulties of their art, seeing that this story contained landscapes, figures both nude and clothed, and animals, while the foremost figures could be made in full-relief, the second in half-relief, and the third in low-relief.
Finally, after many labours, Niccolò became a creditable sculptor, and was commissioned by the Wardens of Works of S. Maria del Fiore to make two statues for the Campanile; these statues, having been placed therein on the side facing the Canon's house, stand one on either side of those that Donato afterwards made; and since nothing better in full-relief had been seen, they were held passing good.
Lorenzo began the said work, putting therein all the knowledge that he could; wherefore he divided the said door into ten squares, five on each side, so that the spaces enclosing the scenes were one braccio and a third in extent, and round them, to adorn the framework that surrounds the scenes, there are niches upright, in that part of the door containing figures in almost full-relief, twenty in number and all most beautiful, such as a nude Samson, who, embracing a column, with a jawbone in his hand, displays a perfection as great as can be shown by anything made in the time of the ancients, in their figures of Hercules, whether in bronze or in marble; and to this a Joshua bears witness, who, in the act of speaking, appears to be really addressing his army; besides many prophets and sibyls, all of which he adorned with various manners of draperies over their shoulders, and with head-dresses, hair, and other adornments; not to mention twelve figures which are lying down in the niches that go horizontally along the ornament of the scenes.
He then set himself to make in wax, in full-relief, a figure one braccio and a half in height of S. Jerome in Penitence, lean beyond belief, which showed on the bones the muscles all withered, a great part of the nerves, and the skin dry and wrinkled; and with such diligence was this work executed by him, that all the craftsmen, and particularly Leonardo da Vinci, pronounced the opinion that there had never been seen a better thing of its kind, nor one wrought with greater art.
This is especially the case at Richmond and Twickenham, but of the great number of eighteenth-century stones in both churchyards there are few very remarkable. Richmond has a rare specimen of the full-relief skull. The death's head has on either side of it the head of an angel in half-relief. The stone is a double one, and I have never met its fellow.
And Luca is said to have sent some very beautiful figures in full-relief to the King of Spain, together with some works in marble. For Naples, also, he made in Florence the marble tomb for the infant brother of the Duke of Calabria, with many glazed ornaments, being assisted by his brother Agostino.
These were executed under the direction of the Frate, who, having at the last constructed a fish-pond in front of that Palace, made a sea monster of marble in full-relief, which pours water in great abundance into that fish-pond; and after the likeness of that monster he made for those lords another, which was sent into Spain to Granvela.
In a very fine chalcedony, found in a river, Matteo engraved divinely well the head of a Deianira almost in full-relief, wearing the lion's skin, the surface being tawny in colour; and he turned to such good advantage a vein of red that was in that stone, representing with it the inner side of the lion's skin at its junction with the head, that the skin had the appearance of one newly flayed.
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