on and the figures of this work,
which, from its being in the open air and much exposed to the vagaries
of the weather, may not have a very long life; scarcely, indeed, was
it finished, when it was much injured by a terrible rain and a very
heavy hail-storm, and in some places the wall was stripped of plaster.
In this facade, then, there are three compartments. The first, to
begin at the foot, is where the principal door and the two windows
are; the second is from the sill of those windows to that of the
second range of windows; and the third is from those last windows to
the cornice of the roof. There are, besides this, six windows in each
range, which give seven spaces; and the whole work was divided
according to this plan in straight lines from the cornice of the roof
down to the ground. Next to the cornice of the roof, then, there is in
perspective a great cornice, with brackets that project over a frieze
of little boys, six of whom stand upright along the breadth of the
facade--namely, one above the centre of the arch of each window; and
these support with their shoulders most beautiful festoons of fruits,
leaves, and flowers, which run from one to another. Those fruits and
flowers are arranged in due succession according to the seasons,
symbolizing the periods of our life, which is there depicted; and on
the middle of the festoons, likewise, where they hang down, are other
little boys in various attitudes. This frieze finished, between the
upper windows, in the spaces that are there, there were painted the
seven Planets, with the seven celestial Signs above them as a crown
and an ornament. Beneath the sill of these windows, on the parapet, is
a frieze of Virtues, who, two by two, are holding seven great ovals;
in which ovals are seven distinct stories representing the Seven Ages
of Man, and each Age is accompanied by two Virtues appropriate to her,
and beneath the ovals in the spaces between the lower windows there
are the three Theological and the four Moral Virtues. Below this, in
the frieze that is above the door and the windows supported by
knee-shaped brackets, are the seven Liberal Arts, each of which is in
a line with the oval in which is the particular story of the Life of
Man appropriate to it; and in the same straight lines, continued
upwards, are the Moral Virtues, Planets, Signs, and other
corresponding symbols. Next, between the windows with knee-shaped
brackets, there is Life, both the active and the