s, not of illustrious masters,
but of simpletons just beginning to learn. Whereas, on the side where
the altar-cloth covers the altar, Polidoro painted a little scene of a
Dead Christ with the Maries, which is a most beautiful work, showing
that in truth that sort of work was more their profession than the use
of colours.

Returning, therefore, to their usual work, they painted two very
beautiful facades in the Campo Marzio; one with the stories of Ancus
Martius, and the other with the Festivals of the Saturnalia, formerly
celebrated in that place, with all the two-horse and four-horse chariots
circling round the obelisks, which are held to be most beautiful,
because they are so well executed both in design and in nobility of
manner, that they reproduce most vividly those very spectacles as
representations of which they were painted. On the Canto della Chiavica,
on the way to the Corte Savella, they painted a facade which is a divine
thing, and is held to be the most beautiful of all the beautiful works
that they executed; for, in addition to the story of the maidens passing
over the Tiber, there is at the foot, near the door, a Sacrifice painted
with marvellous industry and art, wherein may be seen duly represented
all the instruments and all those ancient customs that used to have a
place in sacrifices of that kind. Near the Piazza del Popolo, below S.
Jacopo degli Incurabili, they painted a facade with stories of Alexander
the Great, which is held to be very fine; and there they depicted the
ancient statues of the Nile and the Tiber from the Belvedere. Near S.
Simeone they painted the facade of the Gaddi Palace, which is truly a
cause of marvel and amazement, when one observes the lovely vestments in
it, so many and so various, and the vast number of ancient helmets,
girdles, buskins, and barques, adorned with all the delicacy and
abundance of detail that an inventive imagination could conceive. There,
with a multitude of beautiful things which overload the memory, are
represented all the ways of the ancients, the statues of sages, and most
lovely women: and there are all the sorts of ancient sacrifices with
their ritual, and an army in the various stages between embarking and
fighting with an extraordinary variety of arms and implements, all
executed with such grace and finished with such masterly skill, that the
eye is dazzled by the vast abundance of beautiful inventions. Opposite
to this is a smaller facade, whic