scenes, and five on the architrave, making fifteen in all; and
in them all he carved in low-relief stories from the Old
Testament--namely, from the Creation of man by God up to the Deluge and
Noah's Ark, thus conferring very great benefit on sculpture, since from
the ancients up to that time there had been no one who had wrought
anything in low-relief, wherefore that method of working was rather out
of mind than out of fashion. In the arch of this door he made three
figures in marble, as large as life and all in the round--namely, a very
beautiful Madonna with the Child in her arms, S. Petronius, and another
Saint, all very well grouped and in beautiful attitudes; wherefore the
people of Bologna, who did not think that there could be made a work in
marble, I do not say surpassing, but even equalling that one which
Agostino and Agnolo of Siena had made in the ancient manner on the
high-altar of S. Francesco in their city, were amazed to see that this
one was by a great measure more beautiful.

After this, being requested to return to Lucca, Jacopo went there very
willingly, and made on a marble panel in S. Friano, for Federigo di
Maestro Trenta del Veglia, a Virgin with her Son in her arms, and S.
Sebastian, S. Lucia, S. Jerome, and S. Gismondo, with good manner,
grace, and design; and in the predella below he made in half-relief,
under each Saint, some scene from the life of each, which was something
very lovely and pleasing, seeing that Jacopo gave gradation to his
figures from plane to plane with beautiful art, making them lower as
they receded. In like manner, he gave much encouragement to others to
acquire grace and beauty for their works with new methods, when he
portrayed from the life the patron of the work, Federigo, and his wife,
on two great slabs wrought in low-relief for two tombs; on which slabs
are these words:

HOC OPUS FECIT JACOBUS MAGISTRI PETRI DE SENIS, 1422.

Afterwards, on Jacopo coming to Florence, the Wardens of Works of S.
Maria del Fiore, by reason of the good report that they had heard of
him, commissioned him to make in marble the frontal that is over that
door of the church which leads to the Nunziata, wherein, in a mandorla,
he made the Madonna being borne to Heaven by a choir of angels sounding
instruments and singing, with the most beautiful movements and the most
beautiful attitudes--seeing that they have vivacity and motion in their
flight--that had ever been made up to that time.