Study for the Decoration of a Vault 1532-77 Orazio Samacchini Italian Samacchini worked briefly in Rome but primarily in his native Bologna and surrounding areas. In 1570 he secured the commission to paint the vault of the north transept of the cathedral in the nearby town of Parma. In this drawing, Samacchini's decorative scheme for the transept, a seated prophet of the old Old Testament and a pagan sibyl - both types generally understood to be harbingers of the coming of Christ - are depicted in each of the four corners of the vault, accompanied by putti. The iconography and style of this refined and polished design find their principal inspiration in Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine Ceiling (1508-12), with its alternating monumental figures of sibyls and prophets in a variety of complicated poses. At the same time, the compressed, decorative arrangement of the figures and the crisp, ornamental line are closer to some of the designs of Francesco Salviati, and the Zuccari, artis