figures, and
foliage, which are things divine. In the predella at the foot, which
runs right over the altar from pilaster to pilaster, is a little
half-length Angel who is holding an inscription with his hands, with
festoons over all, between the capitals of the pilasters, where the
architrave, frieze and great cornice project to the extent of the
depth of the pilasters. Above those in the centre, in a space equal to
their breadth, curves an arch that serves as an ornament to the
above-named story of the Magi, and in this, namely, in the lunette,
are many Angels; and above the arch is a cornice, which runs from one
pilaster to another, that is, from those on the outside, which form a
frontispiece to the whole work. In this part is a God the Father in
half-relief; and at the sides, where the arch rises over the
pilasters, are two Victories in half-relief. All this work, then, is
so well composed, and executed with such a wealth of carvings, that
one cannot have enough of examining the minute details of the
perforations and the excellence of all the things that are in the
capitals, cornices, masks, festoons, and candelabra in the round,
which form the completion of a work truly worthy to be admired as
something rare.

Simone Mosca thus dwelling in Orvieto, a son of his called Francesco,
and as a bye-name Il Moschino, a boy fifteen years of age, who had
been produced by nature with chisels in his hand, as it were, and with
so beautiful a genius, that he did with supreme grace whatsoever thing
he desired to do, executed in this work under the discipline of his
father, miraculously, so to speak, the Angels that are holding the
inscriptions between the pilasters, then the God the Father in the
pediment, as well as the Angels that are in the lunette of that work,
above the Adoration of the Magi executed by Raffaello da Montelupo,
and finally the Victories at the sides of the lunette; by which works
he caused everyone to wonder and marvel. All this was the reason that,
when the chapel was finished, Simone was commissioned by the Wardens
of Works of the Duomo to make another similar to it, on the other
side, to the end that the space of the Chapel of the High-Altar might
be suitably set off, on the understanding that the figures should be
varied without varying the architecture, and that in the centre there
should be the Visitation of Our Lady, which was allotted to the
above-named Moschino. Then, having made an agreement about