The story is told in six parts, combined into one large picture. Above, in the centre, Moses kneels on the mountain top (α). The light of Heaven streams over him, and he receives the Tables of the Law into his outstretched hands. Below in the centre he lifts the Tables over his head, to dash them to pieces on the ground (δ). In the upper left-hand corner, the Elders of Israel are seen persuading Aaron, who points to Moses on the mountain, to make the Golden Calf (β): in the lower, we see him casting their gold and jewels into the fire to make it (θ). In the lower right-hand corner the Israelites are worshipping the Calf (η), while above they are smitten with plague and dying in agony (γ). This work appears to have been originally commissioned by a certain Antonio d’Agostino del Vescovo, then Rector (1524);[122] but, as we read from an inscription let into the beautiful frieze that surrounds it, it was completed under the direction of his successor, Francesco di Carlo Tolomei. Beccafumi received on the 30th of August, 1531, 120 scudi for these designs,[123] according to a valuation made for Tolomei by Baldassare Peruzzi himself;[124] which suggests the idea that these two great artists may have together planned the new arrangements of the Choir, and a scheme of decoration to adorn it, when complete. From Landi and Faluschi we learn that the workmen here employed[125] were the same Bernardino di Giacomo, who now received for his work 969 scudi 13: Giacomo di Pietro Gallo, 133 sc. 6.8; Bartolommeo di Pietro Gallo, 41 sc.; and Giovanni d’Antonio Marinelli, called il Mugnaino, 486 sc. To these Milanesi adds two more, not mentioned by either of the above authorities: Niccolo Filippi and Cristofano di Carbone.[126]
Immediately below these scenes a long narrow design, also by Beccafumi, shows
Moses striking the Rock to bring water for the thirsting Israelites (No. 51).
This is by far the most pleasing and successful of Beccafumi’s works. We can see, from its very simplicity, how much its charm depends upon sheer skill of drawing. This work was executed in 1525,[127] but we do not find any record as to the amount paid to him for it, or the workmen employed upon it. Probably they were the same as had carried out his previous designs.[128] These scenes by Beccafumi provoked the most extravagant admiration and applause from the writers of the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; and as tours de force, and specimens of a new kind of work, they are certainly remarkable. They do not, however, succeed in provoking that feeling of pleasure and charm, that one experiences when studying the older and simpler productions.
And now we come to the last section, and some of the latest work.
10. UNDER THE CUPOLA.
This vast hexagonal space is divided into seven hexagons and six lozenges. They all now contain scenes from the Story of Elijah, completing what probably was Beccafumi’s original design. That that artist did prepare designs for four of the hexagons, for two of the lozenges and for a frieze, we have abundant evidence, for we have no less than five notices,[129] between the 11th of March, 1518–19, and the 18th of June, 1524, in the books of the Opera, of payment to him, not only for his labour, but also for the paper used for his cartoons. It is also to be noted that the commission for this work was given him earlier than that of any of the other works above described. Upon these grounds, Professor Luigi Mussini, writing on the Pavement,[130] supposes that they were executed in 1517, and likens them to Pinturicchio’s work of eleven years before. A recent writer in the Miscellanea Storica Senese,[131] however, contests this statement, and quotes a document in the Archives dated 1562,[132] which states that a certain person, called there Giovan Battista nostro, designed four scenes from the Story of Elijah for the Duomo floor, which, we gather from the same sources, were executed by the Cathedral masons, Niccolo di Girolamo Gori, Domenico di Pier Giovanni, and the same Bernardino di Jacomo.
This Giovan Battista was Giovanni Battista di Girolamo Sozzini, brother of Alessandro Sozzini, Diarist of the last Siege of Siena. He was a pupil of Beccafumi’s, and of his work, Scipio Bargagli in his Imprese speaks in high praise, specially mentioning some mandorle designed by him, “placed near the grand works of the great Mecarino.”[133] To add to these facts, we know that Sozzini retained in his possession many drawings by Beccafumi, and among them his cartoons for the floor. These designs he sold to the architect Tiburzio Spannocchi, and it is recorded in the Archives of the Duomo,[134] that the Cathedral authorities endeavoured, but apparently unsuccessfully, to recover them. Some of these have now, as we know, found their way into the Public Picture Gallery. These six designs differ in treatment from Beccafumi’s other work, and the drawing and composition of them is not so striking. The large hexagons represent:
1. The Compact between Elijah and Ahab (in the centre). (Ill. XIX.) No. 42.[135]
2. Ahab’s Sacrifice (to the left). No. 44.