Chapter VII: Part 7

While the Frate was thus passing his time in Rome, the people of Messina, having determined to erect on the Piazza of their Duomo a fountain with a very great enrichment of statues, had sent men to Rome to seek out some excellent sculptor. These men had secured Raffaello da Montelupo, but he fell ill at the very moment when he was about to depart with them for Messina, so that they made another choice and took the Frate, who had sought with all insistence, and even with some interest, to obtain that work. Having therefore apprenticed as a carpenter in Rome his nephew Agnolo, who had proved to be less gifted than he had expected, he set out with Martino, and they arrived in Messina in the month of September, 1547. There, having been provided with rooms, he set his hand to making the conduit for the waters, which come from a distance, and to having marble sent from Carrara; and with great promptitude, assisted by many stone-cutters and carvers, he finished that fountain, which is made in the following manner. The fountain, I say, has eight sides--namely, four large, the principal sides, and four smaller. The principal sides are divided, and two of these, projecting outwards, form an angle in the middle, and two, receding inwards, join a straight face that belongs to the four smaller sides, so that in all there are eight. The four angular sides, which jut outwards, making a projection, give space for the four straight sides, which recede inwards; and in each enclosed space is a basin of some size, which receives water in great abundance from one of four River Gods of marble that are placed on the edge of the basin of the whole fountain, so as to command all the eight sides already described. The fountain stands on a base of four steps, which form twelve sides; eight longer sides, which contain the angles, and four smaller sides, where the basins are, under the four River Gods. The borders of the fountain are five palms high, and at each of the corners (which in all cover twenty sides) there is a terminal figure as an ornament. The circumference of the first basin with eight sides is one hundred and two palms, and the diameter is thirty-four; and in each of the above-named twenty sides is a little scene of marble in low-relief, with poetical subjects appropriate to water and fountains, such as the horse Pegasus creating the Castalian Fount, Europa passing over the sea, Icarus flying and falling into the same, Arethusa transformed into a fount, Jason crossing the sea with the Golden Fleece, Narcissus changed into a fount, and Diana in the water and transforming Actaeon into a stag, with other suchlike stories. At the eight angles that divide the projections of the steps of the fountain, which rises two steps towards the basins and River Gods, and four towards the angular sides, are eight Sea Monsters, lying on certain dados, with their front paws resting on some masks that pour water into some vases. The River Gods which are on the border, and which rest within the basin on dados so high that they appear as if sitting in the water, are the Nile with seven little boys, the Tiber surrounded by an infinite number of palms and trophies, the Ebro with many victories of Charles V, and the River Cumano, near Messina, from which the waters for the fountain are taken; with some stories and Nymphs executed with beautiful conceptions. Up to this level of ten palms there are sixteen jets of water, very abundant; eight come from the masks already mentioned, four from the River Gods, and four from some fishes seven palms high, which, standing upright in the basin, with their heads out, spout water towards the larger sides. In the centre of the octagonal basin, on a pedestal four palms high, are Sirens with wings in place of arms, one at each corner; and above these Sirens, which are twined together in the centre, are four Tritons eight palms high, which likewise have their tails twined together, and with their arms they support a great tazza, into which water is poured by four masks superbly carved. From the centre of that tazza rises a round shaft that supports two most hideous masks, representing Scylla and Charybdis, which are trodden under foot by three nude Nymphs, each six palms high, above whom is placed the last tazza, which is upheld by them with their arms. In that tazza four Dolphins, with their heads down and their tails raised on high, forming a base, support a ball, from the centre of which, through four heads, there issues water that spouts upwards, and so also from the Dolphins, upon which are mounted four naked little boys. On the topmost summit, finally, is a figure in armour representing the constellation of Orion, which has on the shield the arms of the city of Messina, of which Orion is said, or rather is fabled, to have been the founder.

Such, then, is that fountain of Messina, although it is not so easy to describe it in words as it would be to picture it in drawing. And since it much pleased the people of Messina, they caused him to make another on the shore, where the Customs-house is; which also proved to be beautiful and very rich. Now, although that fountain has in like manner eight sides, it is nevertheless different from that described above; for it has four straight sides that rise three steps, and four others, smaller, that are semicircular, and upon these stands the fountain with its eight sides. The borders of the great basin on the lowest level have at each angle a carved pedestal of an equal height, and in the centre of four of them, on the front face, is another pedestal. On each side where the steps are semicircular there is an elliptical basin of marble, into which water pours in great abundance through two masks that are on the parapet below the carved border. In the centre of the great basin of the fountain is a pedestal high in proportion, on which are the arms of Charles V; at each angle of that pedestal is a Sea-horse, which spouts water on high from between its feet; and in the frieze of the same, beneath the upper cornice, are eight great masks that pour jets of water downwards. And on the summit is a Neptune of five braccia, who holds the trident in his hand, and has the right leg planted beside a Dolphin. At the sides, also, upon two other pedestals, are Scylla and Charybdis in the forms of two monsters, fashioned very well, with heads of Dogs and Furies about them.

That work, likewise, when finished, much pleased the people of Messina, who, having found a man to their liking, made a beginning, when the fountains were completed, with the facade of the Duomo, and carried it to some extent forward. And then they ordained that twelve chapels in the Corinthian Order should be made in that Duomo, six on either side, with the twelve Apostles in marble, each of five braccia. Of these chapels only four were finished by the Frate, who also made with his own hand a S. Peter and a S. Paul, which were two large and very good figures. He was also commissioned to make a Christ of marble for the head of the principal chapel, with a very rich ornament all around, and a scene in low-relief beneath each of the statues of the Apostles; but at that time he did nothing more. On the Piazza of the same Duomo he directed the building of the Temple of S. Lorenzo, in a beautiful manner of architecture, which won him much praise; and on the shore there was built under his direction the Beacon-tower. And while these works were being carried forward, he caused a chapel to be erected for the Captain Cicala in S. Domenico, for which he made a Madonna of marble as large as life; and for the chapel of Signor Agnolo Borsa, in the cloister of the same church, he executed a scene of marble in low-relief, which was held to be beautiful, and was wrought with much diligence. He also caused water to be conducted by way of the wall of S. Agnolo for a fountain, and made for it with his own hand a large boy of marble, which pours water into a vase that is very ornate and beautifully contrived; which was held to be a lovely work. At the Wall of the Virgin he made another fountain, with a Virgin by his own hand, which pours water into a basin; and for that which is erected at the Palace of Signor Don Filippo Laroca, he made a boy larger than life, of a kind of stone that is used at Messina, which boy, surrounded by certain monsters and other products of the sea, pours water into a vase. And he made a statue in marble of four braccia, a very beautiful figure of S. Catharine the Martyr, which was sent to Taormina, a place twenty-four miles distant from Messina.

(_After =Fra Giovanni Agnolo Montorsoli=. Bologna: S. Maria dei Servi_)

_Alinari_]

Friends of Fra Giovanni Agnolo, while he was living at Messina, were the above-named Signor Don Filippo Laroca, and Don Francesco of the same family; Messer Bardo Corsi, Giovan Francesco Scali, and M. Lorenzo Borghini, all three Florentine gentlemen then in Messina; Serafino da Fermo, and the Grand Master of Rhodes, which last many times sought to draw him to Malta and to make him a Knight; but he answered that he did not wish to confine himself in that island, besides which, feeling that he was doing ill not to be wearing the habit of his Order, he thought at times of going back to it. And, in truth, I know that even if he had not been in a manner forced to do it, he was determined to resume the habit and to go back to live like a good Churchman. When, therefore, in the time of Pope Paul IV, in the year 1557, all the apostates, or rather, friars who had thrown off the habit, were constrained to return to their Orders under threat of the severest penalties, Fra Giovanni Agnolo abandoned the works that he had in hand, leaving his disciple Martino in his place, and went in the month of May from Messina to Naples, intending to return to his Servite Monastery in Florence.

But before doing any other thing, wishing to devote himself entirely to God, he set about thinking how he might dispose of his great gains most suitably. And so, after having given in marriage certain nieces who were poor girls, and others from his native country and from Montorsoli, he ordained that a thousand crowns should be given to his nephew Agnolo, of whom mention has been already made, in Rome, and that a knighthood of the Lily should be bought for him. To each of two hospitals in Naples he gave a good sum of money in alms. To his own Servite Convent he left a thousand crowns to buy a farm, and also that at Montorsoli which had belonged to his forefathers, on the condition that twenty-five crowns should be paid to each of two nephews of his own, friars of the same Order, every year during their lifetime, together with other charges that will be mentioned later. All these matters being arranged, he showed himself in Rome and resumed the habit, with much joy to himself and to his fellow-friars, and particularly to Maestro Zaccheria. Then, having gone to Florence, he was received and welcomed by his relatives and friends with incredible pleasure and gladness. But, although the Frate had determined that he would spend the rest of his life in the service of our Lord God and the salvation of his soul, and live in peace and quietness, enjoying a knighthood that he had reserved for himself, he did not succeed in this so easily. For he was summoned to Bologna with great insistence by Maestro Giulio Bovio, the uncle of Vascone Bovio, to the end that he might make the high-altar in the Church of the Servites, which was to be all of marble and isolated, and in addition a tomb with figures, richly decorated with variegated stone and incrustations of marble; and he was not able to refuse him, particularly because that work was to be executed in a church of his Order. Having therefore gone to Bologna, he set his hand to the work and executed it in twenty-eight months, making that altar, which shuts off the choir of the friars from one pilaster to the other, all of marble both within and without, with a nude Christ of two braccia and a half in the centre, and with some other statues at the sides. That work is truly beautiful in architecture, well designed and distributed, and so well put together, that nothing better could be done; the pavement, also, wherein there is the tomb of Bovio on the level of the ground, is wrought in a beautifully ordered pattern; certain candelabra of marble, with some little figures and scenes, are passing well contrived; and every part is rich in carving. But the figures, besides that they are small, on account of the difficulty that is found in conveying large pieces of marble to Bologna, are not equal to the architecture, nor much worthy to be praised.

While Fra Giovanni Agnolo was executing that work in Bologna, he was ever pondering, as one who was not yet firmly resolved in the matter, in what place, among those of his Order, he might be able most conveniently to spend his last years; when Maestro Zaccheria, his very dear friend, who was then Prior of the Nunziata in Florence, desiring to attract him to that place and to settle him there, spoke of him to Duke Cosimo, recalling to his memory the excellence of the Frate, and praying that he should deign to make use of him. To which the Duke having answered graciously, saying that he would avail himself of the Frate as soon as he had returned from Bologna, Maestro Zaccheria wrote to him of the whole matter, and then sent him a letter of Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, in which that lord exhorted him that he should return to his own country to execute some important work with his own hand. Having received these letters, the Frate, remembering that Messer Pier Francesco Riccio, after having been mad many years, had died, and that Bandinelli also had left the world, which men had seemed to be little his friends, wrote back that he would not fail to return as soon as he might be able, in order to serve his most illustrious Excellency, and to execute under his protection not profane things, but some sacred work, since he had a mind wholly turned to the service of God and of His Saints.

Finally, then, having returned to Florence in the year 1561, he went off with Maestro Zaccheria to Pisa, where the Lord Duke and the Cardinal were, to do reverence to their most illustrious lordships; and after he had been received with much kindness and favour by those lords, and informed by the Duke that after his return to Florence he would be given a work of importance to execute, he went back. Then, having obtained leave from his fellow-friars of the Nunziata by means of Maestro Zaccheria, he erected in the centre of the chapter-house of that convent, where many years before he had made the Moses and S. Paul of stucco, as has been related above, a very beautiful tomb for himself and for all such men of the arts of design, painters, sculptors, and architects, as had not a place of their own in which to be buried; intending to arrange by a contract, as he did, that those friars, in return for the property that he was to leave to them, should be obliged to say Mass on some feast-days and ordinary days in that chapter-house, and that every year, on the day of the most Holy Trinity, a solemn festival should be held there, and on the following day an office of the dead for the souls of those buried in that place.

This design having then been imparted by Fra Giovanni Agnolo and Maestro Zaccheria to Giorgio Vasari, who was very much their friend, they discoursed together on the affairs of the Company of Design, which had been created in the time of Giotto, and had a home in S. Maria Nuova in Florence, which it had possessed from that time down to our own, as may still be seen at the present day from a record at the high-altar of that Hospital; and they thought with this occasion to revive it and set it up again. For that Company had been removed from the above-mentioned high-altar, as has been related in the Life of Jacopo di Casentino, to a place under the vaulting of the same Hospital at the corner of the Via della Pergola, and finally had been removed and driven from that place also by Don Isidoro Montaguti, the Director of the Hospital, so that it was almost entirely dispersed, and no longer assembled. Now, after Fra Giovanni Agnolo, Maestro Zaccheria, and Giorgio had thus discoursed at some length of the condition of that Company, and the Frate had spoken of it with Bronzino, Francesco da San Gallo, Ammanati, Vincenzio de' Rossi, Michele di Ridolfo, and many other sculptors and painters of the first rank, and had declared his mind to them, when the morning of the most Holy Trinity came, all the most noble and excellent craftsmen of the arts of design, to the number of forty-eight, were assembled in the above-named chapter-house, where a most beautiful festival had been prepared, and where the tomb was already finished, and the altar so far advanced that there were wanting only some figures of marble that were going into it. There, after a most solemn Mass had been said, a beautiful oration was made by one of those fathers in praise of Fra Giovanni Agnolo, and of the magnificent liberality that he was showing to the Company by presenting to them that chapter-house, that tomb, and that chapel, in order to take possession of which, he said in conclusion, it had been already arranged that the body of Pontormo, which had been placed in a vault in the first little cloister of the Nunziata, should be laid in the new tomb before any other. When, therefore, the Mass and the oration were finished, they all went into the church, where there were on a bier the remains of that Pontormo; and then, having placed the bier on the shoulders of the younger men, with a taper for each and also some torches, they passed around the Piazza and carried it into the chapter-house, which, previously draped with cloth of gold, they found all black and covered with painted corpses and other suchlike things; and thus was Pontormo laid in the new tomb.

The Company then dispersing, the first meeting was ordained for the next Sunday, when, besides settling the constitution of the Company, they were to make a selection of the best and create an Academy, with the assistance of which those without knowledge might learn, and those with knowledge, spurred by honourable and praiseworthy emulation, might proceed to make greater proficience. Giorgio, meanwhile, had spoken of these matters with the Duke, and had besought him that he should favour the study of these noble arts, even as he had favoured the study of letters by reopening the University of Pisa, creating a college for scholars, and making a beginning with the Florentine Academy; and he found him as ready to assist and favour that enterprise as he could have desired. After these things, the Servite Friars, having thought better over the matter, came to a resolution, which they made known to the Company, that they would not have their chapter-house used by them save for holding festivals, offices, and burials, and would not have their convent disturbed by the Company's meetings and assemblies, or in any other way. Of which Giorgio having spoken with the Duke, demanding some place from him, his Excellency said that he had thought of providing them with one wherein they might not only be able to erect a building for the Company, but also have room enough to work and demonstrate their worth. And shortly afterwards he wrote through M. Lelio Torelli to the Prior and Monks of the Angeli, giving them to understand that they were to accommodate the above-named Company in the temple that had been begun in their monastery by Filippo Scolari, called Lo Spano. The monks obeyed, and the Company was provided with certain rooms, in which they assembled many times with the gracious leave of those fathers, who received them sometimes even in their own chapter-house with much courtesy. But the Duke having been informed afterwards that some of those monks were not altogether content that the Company's building should be erected in their precincts, because the monastery would be encumbered thereby, and the above-named temple, which the craftsmen said that they wished to fill with their works, would do very well as it was, so far as they were concerned, his Excellency made it known to the men of the Academy, which had already made a beginning and had held the festival of S. Luke in that temple, that the monks, so he understood, were not very willing to have them in their house, and that therefore he would not fail to provide them with another place. The same Lord Duke also said, like the truly magnanimous Prince that he is, that he wished not only always to favour that Academy, but also to be himself its chief, guide, and protector, and that for that reason he would appoint year by year a Lieutenant who might be present in his stead at all their meetings. Acting on this promise, he chose as the first the reverend Don Vincenzio Borghini, the Director of the Hospital of the Innocenti; and for these favours and courtesies shown by the Lord Duke to his new Academy, he was thanked by ten of the oldest and most excellent of its members. But since the reformation of the Company and the rules of the Academy are described at great length in the statutes that were drawn up by the men elected and deputed for that purpose as reformers by the whole body (who were Fra Giovanni Agnolo, Francesco da San Gallo, Agnolo Bronzino, Giorgio Vasari, Michele di Ridolfo, and Pier Francesco di Jacopo di Sandro), in the presence of the said Lieutenant, and with the approval of his Excellency, I shall say no more about it in this place. I must mention, however, that since the old seal and arms, or rather, device of the Company, which was a winged ox lying down, the animal of S. Luke the Evangelist, displeased many of them, it was ordained that each one should give in words his suggestion for a new one, or show it in a drawing, and then there were seen the most beautiful inventions and the most lovely and extravagant fantasies that could be imagined. But for all that it is not yet completely determined which of them is to be accepted.

Meanwhile Martino, the disciple of the Frate, having come from Messina to Florence, died in a few days, and was buried in the above-named tomb that had been made by his master. And not long afterwards, in 1564, the good father himself, Fra Giovanni Agnolo, who had been so excellent a sculptor, was buried in the same tomb with most honourable obsequies, a very beautiful oration being delivered in his praise in the Temple of the Nunziata by the very reverend and most learned Maestro Michelagnolo. Truly great is the debt that our arts for many reasons owe to Fra Giovanni Agnolo, in that he bore infinite love to them and likewise to their craftsmen; and of what great service has been and still is that Academy, which may be said to have received its origin from him in the manner that has been described, and which is now under the protection of the Lord Duke Cosimo, and assembles by his command in the new sacristy of S. Lorenzo, where there are so many works in sculpture by Michelagnolo, may be recognized from this, that not only in the obsequies of that Buonarroti (which, thanks to our craftsmen and to the assistance of the Prince, were not merely magnificent, but little less than regal, and which will be described in his Life), but also in many other undertakings, the same men, from emulation, and from a desire not to be unworthy of their Academy, have achieved marvellous things, and particularly in the nuptials of the most illustrious Lord, Don Francesco de' Medici, Prince of Florence and Siena, and of her Serene Highness, Queen Joanna of Austria, which have been described fully and in due order by others, and will be described again by us at great length in a more convenient place.

And since not only in this good father, but also in many others of whom we have spoken above, it has been seen, as it still continues to be, that good Churchmen are useful and serviceable to the world in the arts and in the other more noble exercises no less than in letters, in public instruction, and in sacred councils, and that they have no reason to fear comparison in this respect with others, it may be said that there is probably no truth whatever in that which certain persons, influenced more by anger or by some private spite than by reason and love of truth, declare so freely of them--namely, that they devote themselves to such a life because from poverty of spirit they have not, like other men, the power to make a livelihood; for which may God forgive them. Fra Giovanni Agnolo lived fifty-six years, and died on the last day of August, 1563.

FRANCESCO SALVIATI

LIFE OF FRANCESCO SALVIATI

PAINTER OF FLORENCE

The father of Francesco Salviati, whose Life we are now about to write, and who was born in the year 1510, was a good man called Michelagnolo de' Rossi, a weaver of velvets; and he, having not only this child but also many others, both male and female, and being therefore in need of assistance, had determined in his own mind that he would at all costs make Francesco devote himself to his own calling of weaving velvets. But the boy, who had turned his mind to other things, and did not like the pursuit of that trade, although in the past it had been practised by persons, I will not say noble, but passing rich and prosperous, followed his father's wishes in that matter with no good-will. Indeed, associating in the Via de' Servi, where his father had a house, with the children of Domenico Naldini, their neighbour and an honoured citizen, he showed himself all given to gentle and honourable ways, and much inclined to design. In which matter he received no little assistance for a time from a cousin of his own called Diacceto, a young goldsmith, who had a passing good knowledge of design, in that he not only taught him all that he knew, but also furnished him with many drawings by various able men, over which, without telling his father, Francesco practised day and night with extraordinary zeal. And Domenico Naldini, having become aware of this, first examined the boy well, and then prevailed upon his father, Michelagnolo, to place him in his uncle's shop to learn the goldsmith's art; by reason of which opportunity for design Francesco in a few months made so much proficience, that everyone was astonished.

In those days a company of young goldsmiths and painters used to assemble together at times and go throughout Florence on feast-days drawing the most famous works, and not one of them laboured more or with greater love than did Francesco. The young men of that company were Nanni di Prospero delle Corniole, the goldsmith Francesco di Girolamo dal Prato, Nannoccio da San Giorgio, and many other lads who afterwards became able men in their professions.

(_After the panel by =Francesco Salviati [Francesco de' Rossi]=. Florence: Uffizi, 1256_)

_Alinari_]

At this time Francesco and Giorgio Vasari, both being still boys, became fast friends, and in the following manner. In the year 1523, Silvio Passerini, Cardinal of Cortona, passing through Arezzo as the Legate of Pope Clement VII, Antonio Vasari, his kinsman, took Giorgio, his eldest son, to make his reverence to the Cardinal. And the Cardinal, finding that the boy, who at that time was not more than nine years of age, had been so well grounded in his first letters by the diligence of M. Antonio da Saccone and of Messer Giovanni Pollastra, an excellent poet of Arezzo, that he knew by heart a great part of the _AEneid_ of Virgil, which he was pleased to hear him recite, and that he had learned to draw from Guglielmo da Marcilla, the French painter--the Cardinal, I say, ordained that Antonio should himself take the boy to Florence. There Giorgio was settled in the house of M. Niccolo Vespucci, Knight of Rhodes, who lived on the abutment of the Ponte Vecchio, above the Church of the Sepolcro, and was placed with Michelagnolo Buonarroti; and this circumstance came to the knowledge of Francesco, who was then living in the Chiasso di Messer Bivigliano, where his father rented a great house that faced on the Vacchereccia, employing many workmen. Whereupon, since like always draws to like, he so contrived that he became the friend of Giorgio, by means of M. Marco da Lodi, a gentleman of the above-named Cardinal of Cortona, who showed to Giorgio a portrait, which much pleased him, by the hand of Francesco, who a short time before had been placed to learn painting with Giuliano Bugiardini. Meanwhile Vasari, not neglecting the study of letters, by order of the Cardinal spent two hours every day with Ippolito and Alessandro de' Medici, under their master Pierio, an able man. And this friendship, contracted as described above between Vasari and Francesco, became such that it never ceased to bind them together, although, by reason of their rivalry and a certain somewhat haughty manner of speech that Francesco had, some persons thought otherwise.

When Vasari had been some months with Michelagnolo, that excellent man was summoned to Rome by Pope Clement, to receive instructions for beginning the Library of S. Lorenzo; and he was placed by him, before he departed, with Andrea del Sarto. And devoting himself under him to design, Giorgio was continually lending his master's drawings in secret to Francesco, who had no greater desire than to obtain and study them, as he did day and night. Afterwards Giorgio was placed by the Magnificent Ippolito with Baccio Bandinelli, who was pleased to have the boy with him and to teach him; and Vasari contrived to obtain Francesco as his companion, with great advantage to them both, for the reason that while working together they learned more and made greater progress in one month than they had done in two years while drawing by themselves. And the same did another young man who was likewise working under Bandinelli at that time, called Nannoccio of the Costa San Giorgio, of whom mention was made not long ago.

In the year 1527, the Medici being expelled from Florence, there was a fight for the Palace of the Signoria, and a bench was thrown down from on high so as to fall upon those who were assaulting the door; but, as fate would have it, that bench hit an arm of the David in marble by Buonarroti, which is beside the door on the Ringhiera, and broke it into three pieces. These pieces having remained on the ground for three days, without being picked up by anyone, Francesco went to the Ponte Vecchio to find Giorgio, and told him his intention; and then, children as they were, they went to the Piazza, and, without thinking of any danger, in the midst of the soldiers of the guard, they took the pieces of that arm and carried them to the house of Michelagnolo, the father of Francesco, in the Chiasso di M. Bivigliano. From which house having afterwards recovered them, Duke Cosimo in time caused them to be restored to their places with pegs of copper.

After this, the Medici being in exile, and with them the above-mentioned Cardinal of Cortona, Antonio Vasari took his son back to Arezzo, to the no little regret of Giorgio and Francesco, who loved one another as brothers. But they did not long remain separated from each other, for the reason that after the plague, which came in the following August, had killed Giorgio's father and the best part of his family, he was so pressed with letters by Francesco, who also came very near dying of plague, that he returned to Florence. There, working with incredible zeal for a period of two years, being driven by necessity and by the desire to learn, they made marvellous proficience, having recourse, together with the above-named Nannoccio da San Giorgio, to the workshop of the painter Raffaello da Brescia, under whom Francesco, being the one who had most need to provide himself with the means to live, executed many little pictures.

Having come to the year 1529, since it did not appear to Francesco that staying in Brescia's workshop was doing him much good, he and Nannoccio went to work with Andrea del Sarto, and stayed with him all the time that the siege lasted, but in such discomfort, that they repented that they had not followed Giorgio, who spent that year in Pisa with the goldsmith Manno, giving his attention for four months to the goldsmith's craft to occupy himself. Vasari having then gone to Bologna, at the time when the Emperor Charles V was crowned there by Clement VII, Francesco, who had remained in Florence, executed on a little panel a votive picture for a soldier who had been murderously attacked in bed by certain other soldiers during the siege; and although it was a paltry thing, he studied it and executed it to perfection. That votive picture fell not many years ago into the hands of Giorgio Vasari, who presented it to the reverend Don Vincenzio Borghini, the Director of the Hospital of the Innocenti, who holds it dear. For the Black Friars of the Badia Francesco painted three little scenes on a Tabernacle of the Sacrament made by the carver Tasso in the manner of a triumphal arch. In one of these is the Sacrifice of Abraham, in the second the Manna, and in the third the Hebrews eating the Paschal Lamb on their departure from Egypt; and the work was such that it gave an earnest of the success that he has since achieved. He then painted in a picture for Francesco Sertini, who sent it to France, a Dalilah who was cutting off the locks of Samson, and in the distance Samson embracing the columns of the temple and bringing it down upon the Philistines; which picture made Francesco known as the most excellent of the young painters that were then in Florence.

Not long afterwards the elder Cardinal Salviati having requested Benvenuto della Volpaia, a master of clock-making, who was in Rome at that time, to find for him a young painter who might live with him and paint some pictures for his delight, Benvenuto proposed to him Francesco, who was his friend, and whom he knew to be the most competent of all the young painters of his acquaintance; which he did all the more willingly because the Cardinal had promised that he would give the young man every facility and all assistance to enable him to study. The Cardinal, then, liking the young Francesco's qualities, said to Benvenuto that he should send for him, and gave him money for that purpose. And so, when Francesco had arrived in Rome, the Cardinal, being pleased with his method of working, his ways, and his manners, ordained that he should have rooms in the Borgo Vecchio, and four crowns a month, with a place at the table of his gentlemen. The first works that Francesco (to whom it appeared that he had been very fortunate) executed for the Cardinal were a picture of Our Lady, which was held to be very beautiful, and a canvas of a French nobleman who is running in chase of a hind, which, flying from him, takes refuge in the Temple of Diana: of which work I keep the design, drawn by his hand, in my book, in memory of him. That canvas finished, the Cardinal caused him to portray in a very beautiful picture of Our Lady a niece of his own, married to Signor Cagnino Gonzaga, and likewise that lord himself.

Now, while Francesco was living in Rome, with no greater desire than to see his friend Giorgio Vasari in that city, Fortune was favourable to his wishes in that respect, and even more to Vasari. For, Cardinal Ippolito having parted in great anger from Pope Clement for reasons that were discussed at the time, but returning not long afterwards to Rome accompanied by Baccio Valori, in passing through Arezzo he found Giorgio, who had been left without a father and was occupying himself as best he could; wherefore, desiring that he should make some proficience in art, and wishing to have him near his person, he commanded Tommaso de' Nerli, who was Commissary there, that he should send him to Rome as soon as he should have finished a chapel that he was painting in fresco for the Monks of S. Bernardo, of the Order of Monte Oliveto, in that city. That commission Nerli executed immediately, and Giorgio, having thus arrived in Rome, went straightway to find Francesco, who joyfully described to him in what favour he was with his lord the Cardinal, and how he was in a place where he could satisfy his hunger for study; adding, also: "Not only do I enjoy the present, but I hope for even better things, for, besides seeing you in Rome, with whom, as the young friend nearest to my heart, I shall be able to study and discuss the matters of art, I also live in hope of entering the service of Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, from whose liberality, as well as from the favour of the Pope, I may look for greater things than I have at present; and this will happen without a doubt if a certain young man, who is expected from abroad, does not arrive." Giorgio, although he knew that the young man who was expected was himself, and that the place was being kept for him, yet would not reveal himself, because of a certain doubt that had entered his mind as to whether the Cardinal might not have another in view, and also from a wish not to declare a circumstance that might afterwards fall out differently. Giorgio had brought a letter from the above-named Commissary Nerli to the Cardinal, which, after having been five days in Rome, he had not yet presented. Finally Giorgio and Francesco went to the Palace and found in what is now the Hall of Kings Messer Marco da Lodi, who had formerly been with the Cardinal of Cortona, as was related above, but was then in the service of Medici. To him Giorgio presented himself, saying that he had a letter from the Commissary of Arezzo that was to be delivered to the Cardinal, and praying that he should give it to him; which Messer Marco was promising to do immediately, when at that very moment the Cardinal himself appeared there. Whereupon Giorgio, coming forward before him, presented the letter and kissed his hands; and he was received graciously, and shortly afterwards given into the charge of Jacopone da Bibbiena, the master of the household, who was commanded to provide him with rooms and with a place at the table of the pages. It appeared a strange thing to Francesco that Giorgio should not have confided the matter to him; but he was persuaded that he had done it for the best and with a good intention.

When the above-named Jacopone, therefore, had given Giorgio some rooms behind S. Spirito, near Francesco, the two devoted themselves in company all that winter to the study of art, with much profit, leaving no noteworthy work, either in the Palace or in any other part of Rome, that they did not draw. And since, when the Pope was in the Palace, they were not able to stay there drawing at their ease, as soon as his Holiness had ridden forth to the Magliana, as he often did, they would gain admittance by means of friends into those apartments to draw, and would stay there from morning till night without eating anything but a little bread, and almost freezing with cold. Cardinal Salviati having then commanded Francesco that he should paint in fresco in the chapel of his Palace, where he heard Mass every morning, some stories of the life of S. John the Baptist, Francesco set himself to study nudes from life, and Giorgio with him, in a bath-house near there; and afterwards they made some anatomical studies in the Campo Santo.

The spring having then come, Cardinal Ippolito, being sent by the Pope to Hungary, ordained that Giorgio should be sent to Florence, and should there execute some pictures and portraits that he had to despatch to Rome. But in the July following, what with the fatigues of the past winter and the heat of summer, Giorgio fell ill and was carried by litter to Arezzo, to the great sorrow of Francesco, who also fell sick and was like to die. However, being restored to health, Francesco was commissioned by Maestro Filippo da Siena, at the instance of Antonio L'Abacco, a master-worker in wood, to paint in fresco in a niche over the door at the back of S. Maria della Pace, a Christ speaking with S. Filippo, and in two angles the Virgin and the Angel of the Annunciation; which pictures, much pleasing Maestro Filippo, were the reason that he caused him to paint the Assumption of Our Lady in the same place, in a large square space that was not yet painted in one of the eight sides of that temple. Whereupon Francesco, reflecting that he had to execute that work not merely in a public place, but in a place where there were pictures by the rarest masters--Raffaello da Urbino, Rosso, Baldassarre da Siena, and others--put all possible study and diligence into executing it in oils on the wall, so that it proved to be a beautiful picture, and was much extolled; and excellent among other figures is held to be the portrait that he painted there of the above-named Maestro Filippo with the hands clasped. And since Francesco lived, as has been told, with Cardinal Salviati, and was known as his protege, he began to be called and known by no other name but Cecchino Salviati, and he kept that name to the day of his death.

Pope Clement VII being dead and Paul III elected, M. Bindo Altoviti caused Francesco to paint on the facade of his house at the Ponte S. Agnolo the arms of the new Pontiff, with some large nude figures, which gave infinite satisfaction. About the same time he made a portrait of that Messer Bindo, which was a very good figure and a beautiful portrait; and this was afterwards sent to his villa of S. Mizzano in the Valdarno, where it still is. He then painted for the Church of S. Francesco a Ripa a very beautiful altar-picture of the Annunciation in oils, which was executed with the greatest diligence. For the coming of Charles V to Rome in the year 1535, he painted for Antonio da San Gallo some scenes in chiaroscuro, which were placed on the arch that was made at S. Marco; and these pictures, as has been said in another place, were the best that there were in all those festive decorations.

Afterwards Signor Pier Luigi Farnese, who had been made Lord of Nepi at that time, wishing to adorn that city with new buildings and pictures, took Francesco into his service, giving him rooms in the Belvedere; and there Francesco painted for him on large canvases some scenes in gouache of the actions of Alexander the Great, which were afterwards carried into execution and woven into tapestries in Flanders. For the same Lord of Nepi he decorated a large and very beautiful bathroom with many scenes and figures executed in fresco. Then, the same lord having been created Duke of Castro, for his first entry rich and most beautiful decorations were made in that city under the direction of Francesco, and at the gate an arch all covered with scenes, figures, and statues, executed with much judgment by able men, and in particular by Alessandro, called Scherano, a sculptor of Settignano. Another arch, in the form of a facade, was made at the Petrone, and yet another on the Piazza, which arches, with regard to the woodwork, were executed by Battista Botticelli; and in these festive preparations, among other things, Francesco made a beautiful perspective-scene for a comedy that was performed.

About the same time, Giulio Camillo, who was then in Rome, having made a book of his compositions in order to send it to King Francis of France, had it all illustrated by Francesco Salviati, who put into it all the diligence that it is possible to devote to such a work. Cardinal Salviati, having a desire to possess a picture in tinted woods (that is, in tarsia) by the hand of Fra Damiano da Bergamo, a lay-brother of S. Domenico at Bologna, sent him a design done in red chalk by the hand of Francesco, as a pattern for its execution; which design, representing King David being anointed by Samuel, was the best thing that Cecchino Salviati ever drew, and truly most rare. After this, Giovanni da Cepperello and Battista Gobbo of San Gallo--who had caused the Florentine painter Jacopo del Conte, then a young man, to paint in the Florentine Company of the Misericordia in S. Giovanni Decollato, under the Campidoglio at Rome, namely, in the second church where they hold their assemblies, a story of that same S. John the Baptist, showing the Angel appearing to Zacharias in the Temple--commissioned Francesco to paint below that scene another story of the same Saint, namely, the Visitation of Our Lady to S. Elizabeth. That work, which was finished in the year 1538, he executed in fresco in such a manner, that it is worthy to be numbered among the most graceful and best conceived pictures that Francesco ever painted, in the invention, in the composition of the scene, in the method and the attention to rules for the gradation of the figures, in the perspective and the architecture of the buildings, in the nudes, in the draped figures, in the grace of the heads, and, in short, in every part; wherefore it is no marvel if all Rome was struck with astonishment by it. Around a window he executed some bizarre fantasies in imitation of marble, and some little scenes that have marvellous grace. And since Francesco never wasted any time, while he was engaged on that work he executed many other things, and also drawings, and he coloured a Phaethon with the Horses of the Sun, which Michelagnolo had drawn. All these things Salviati showed to Giorgio, who after the death of Duke Alessandro had gone to Rome for two months; saying to him that, once he had finished a picture of a young S. John that he was painting for his master Cardinal Salviati, a Passion of Christ on canvas that was to be sent to Spain, and a picture of Our Lady that he was painting for Raffaello Acciaiuoli, he wished to turn his steps to Florence in order to revisit his native place, his relatives, and his friends, for his father and mother were still alive, to whom he was always of the greatest assistance, and particularly in settling two sisters, one of whom was married, and the other is a nun in the Convent of Monte Domini.

Coming thus to Florence, where he was received with much rejoicing by his relatives and friends, it chanced that he arrived there at the very moment when the festive preparations were being made for the nuptials of Duke Cosimo and the Lady Donna Leonora di Toledo. Wherefore he was commissioned to paint one of the already mentioned scenes that were executed in the courtyard, which he accepted very willingly; and that was the one in which the Emperor was placing the Ducal crown on the head of Duke Cosimo. But being seized, before he had finished it, with a desire to go to Venice, Francesco left it to Carlo Portelli of Loro, who finished it after Francesco's design; which design, with many others by the same hand, is in our book.

Having departed from Florence and made his way to Bologna, Francesco found there Giorgio Vasari, who had returned two days before from Camaldoli, where he had finished the two altar-pieces that are in the tramezzo[17] of the church, and had begun that of the high-altar; and Vasari was arranging to paint three great panel-pictures for the refectory of the Fathers of S. Michele in Bosco, where he kept Francesco with him for two days. During that time, some of his friends made efforts to obtain for him the commission for an altar-piece that was to be allotted by the men of the Della Morte Hospital. But, although Salviati made a most beautiful design, those men, having little understanding, were not able to recognize the opportunity that Messer Domeneddio[18] had sent them of obtaining for Bologna a work by the hand of an able master. Wherefore Francesco went away in some disdain, leaving some very beautiful designs in the hands of Girolamo Fagiuoli, to the end that he might engrave them on copper and have them printed.

[Footnote 17: See note on p. 57, Vol. I.]

[Footnote 18: A method of alluding to the Deity, which, in
its playful simplicity, is quite impossible in English.]

Having arrived in Venice, he was received courteously by the Patriarch Grimani and his brother Messer Vettorio, who showed him a thousand favours. For that Patriarch, after a few days, he painted in oils, in an octagon of four braccia, a most beautiful Psyche to whom, as to a Goddess, on account of her beauty, incense and votive offerings are presented; which octagon was placed in a hall in the house of that lord, wherein is a ceiling in the centre of which there curve some festoons executed by Camillo Mantovano, an excellent painter in representing landscapes, flowers, leaves, fruits, and other suchlike things. That octagon, I say, was placed in the midst of four pictures each two braccia and a half square, executed with stories of the same Psyche, as was related in the Life of Genga, by Francesco da Forli; and the octagon is not only beyond all comparison more beautiful than those four pictures, but even the most beautiful work of painting that there is in all Venice. After that, in a chamber wherein Giovanni Ricamatori of Udine had executed many works in stucco, he painted some little figures in fresco, both nude and draped, which are full of grace. In like manner, in an altar-piece that he executed for the Nuns of the Corpus Domini at Venice, he painted with much diligence a Dead Christ with the Maries, and in the air an Angel who has the Mysteries of the Passion in the hands. He made the portrait of M. Pietro Aretino, which, as a rare work, was sent by that poet to King Francis, with some verses in praise of him who had painted it. And for the Nuns of S. Cristina in Bologna, of the Order of Camaldoli, the same Salviati, at the entreaty of Don Giovan Francesco da Bagno, their Confessor, painted an altar-piece with many figures, a truly beautiful picture, which is in the church of that convent.