Part 18

Urged on, therefore, by so many sharp spurs, and by seeing how much need my family had of me, I disposed myself never to shrink from any fatigue, discomfort, vigil, and toil, in order to achieve that end; and, having thus resolved in my mind, there remained nothing notable at that time in Rome, or afterwards in Florence, and in other places where I dwelt, that I did not draw in my youth, and not pictures only, but also sculptures and architectural works ancient and modern. And besides the proficience that I made in drawing the vaulting and chapel of Michelagnolo, there remained nothing of Raffaello, Polidoro, and Baldassarre da Siena, that I did not likewise draw in company with Francesco Salviati, as has been told already in his Life. And to the end that each of us might have drawings of everything, during the day the one would not draw the same things as the other, but different, and then at night we used to copy each other's drawings, so as to save time and extend our studies; not to mention that more often than not we ate our morning meal standing up, and little at that. After which incredible labour, the first work that issued from my hands, as from my own forge, was a great picture with figures large as life, of a Venus with the Graces adorning and beautifying her, which Cardinal de' Medici caused me to paint; but of that picture there is no need to speak, because it was the work of a lad, nor would I touch on it, save that it is dear to me to remember still these first beginnings and many upward steps of my apprenticeship in the arts. Enough that that lord and others gave me to believe that there was in it a certain something of a good beginning and of a lively and resolute spirit. And since among other things I had made therein to please my fancy a lustful Satyr who, standing hidden amid some bushes, was rejoicing and feasting himself on the sight of Venus and the Graces nude, that so pleased the Cardinal that he had me clothed anew from head to foot, and then gave orders that I should paint in a larger picture, likewise in oils, the battle of the Satyrs with the Fauns, Sylvan Gods, and children, forming a sort of Bacchanal; whereupon, setting to work, I made the cartoon and then sketched in the canvas in colours, which was ten braccia long. Having then to depart in the direction of Hungary, the Cardinal made me known to Pope Clement and left me to the protection of his Holiness, who gave me into the charge of Signor Jeronimo Montaguto, his Chamberlain, with letters authorizing that, if I might wish to fly from the air of Rome that summer, I should be received in Florence by Duke Alessandro; which it would have been well for me to do, because, choosing after all to stay in Rome, what with the heat, the air, and my fatigue, I fell sick in such sort that in order to be restored I was forced to have myself carried by litter to Arezzo. Finally, however, being well again, about the 10th of the following December I came to Florence, where I was received by the above-named Duke with kindly mien, and shortly afterwards given into the charge of the magnificent M. Ottaviano de' Medici, who so took me under his protection, that as long as he lived he treated me always as a son; and his blessed memory I shall always remember and revere, as of a most affectionate father. Returning then to my usual studies, I received facilities by means of that lord to enter at my pleasure into the new sacristy of S. Lorenzo, where are the works of Michelagnolo, he having gone in those days to Rome; and so I studied them for some time with much diligence, just as they were on the ground. Then, setting myself to work, I painted in a picture of three braccia a Dead Christ carried to the Sepulchre by Nicodemus, Joseph, and others, and behind them the Maries weeping; which picture, when it was finished, was taken by Duke Alessandro. And it was a good and auspicious beginning for my labours, for the reason that not only did he hold it in account as long as he lived, but it has been ever since in the chamber of Duke Cosimo, and is now in that of the most illustrious Prince, his son; and although at times I have desired to set my hand upon it again, in order to improve it in some parts, I have not been allowed. Duke Alessandro, then, having seen this my first work, ordained that I should finish the ground-floor room in the Palace of the Medici which had been left incomplete, as has been related, by Giovanni da Udine. Whereupon I painted there four stories of the actions of Caesar; his swimming with the Commentaries in one hand and a sword in the mouth, his causing the writings of Pompeius to be burned in order not to see the works of his enemies, his revealing himself to a helmsman while tossed by fortune on the sea, and, finally, his triumph; but this last was not completely finished. During which time, although I was but little more than eighteen years of age, the Duke gave me a salary of six crowns a month, a place at table for myself and a servant, and rooms to live in, with many other conveniences. And although I knew that I was very far from deserving so much, yet I did all that I could with diligence and lovingness, nor did I shrink from asking from my elders whatever I did not know myself; wherefore on many occasions I was assisted with counsel and with work by Tribolo, Bandinelli, and others. I painted, then, in a picture three braccia high, Duke Alessandro himself in armour, portrayed from life, with a new invention in a seat formed of captives bound together, and with other fantasies. And I remember that besides the portrait, which was a good likeness, in seeking to make the burnished surface of the armour bright, shining, and natural, I was not very far from losing my wits, so much did I exert myself in copying every least thing from the reality. However, despairing to be able to approach to the truth in the work, I took Jacopo da Pontormo, whom I revered for his great ability, to see it and to advise me; and he, having seen the picture and perceived my agony, said to me lovingly: "My son, as long as this real lustrous armour stands beside the picture, your armour will always appear to you as painted, for, although lead-white is the most brilliant pigment that art employs, the iron is yet more brilliant and lustrous. Take away the real armour, and you will then see that your counterfeit armour is not such poor stuff as you think it."

That picture, when it was finished, I gave to the Duke, and the Duke presented it to M. Ottaviano de' Medici, in whose house it has been up to the present day, in company with the portrait of Caterina, the then young sister of the Duke, and afterwards Queen of France, and that of the Magnificent Lorenzo, the Elder. And in the same house are three pictures also by my hand and executed in my youth; in one is Abraham sacrificing Isaac, in the second Christ in the Garden, and in the third His Supper with the Apostles. Meanwhile Cardinal Ippolito died, in whom was centred the sum of all my hopes, and I began to recognize how vain generally are the hopes of this world, and that a man must trust mostly in himself and in being of some account. After these works, perceiving that the Duke was all given over to fortifications and to building, I began, the better to be able to serve him, to give attention to matters of architecture, and spent much time upon them. But meanwhile, festive preparations having to be made in Florence in the year 1536 for receiving the Emperor Charles V, the Duke, in giving orders for that, commanded the deputies charged with the care of those pomps, as has been related in the Life of Tribolo, that they should have me with them to design all the arches and other ornaments to be made for that entry. Which done, there was allotted to me for my benefit, besides the great banners of the castle and fortress, as has been told, the facade in the manner of a triumphal arch that was constructed at S. Felice in Piazza, forty braccia high and twenty wide, and then the ornamentation of the Porta a S. Piero Gattolini; works all great and beyond my strength. And, what was worse, those favours having drawn down upon me a thousand envious thoughts, about twenty men who were helping me to do the banners and the other labours left me nicely in the lurch, at the persuasion of one person or another, to the end that I might not be able to execute works so many and of such importance. But I, who had foreseen the malice of such creatures (to whom I had always sought to give assistance), partly labouring with my own hand day and night, and partly aided by painters brought in from without, who helped me secretly, attended to my business, and strove to conquer all such difficulties and treacheries by means of the works themselves. During that time Bertoldo Corsini, who was then proveditor-general to his Excellency, had reported to the Duke that I had undertaken to do so many things that it would never be possible for me to have them finished in time, particularly because I had no men and the works were much in arrears. Whereupon the Duke sent for me, and told me what he had heard; and I answered that my works were well advanced, as his Excellency might see at his pleasure, and that the end would do credit to the whole. Then I went away, and no long time passed before he came secretly to where I was working, and, having seen everything, recognized in part the envy and malice of those who were pressing upon me without having any cause. The time having come when everything was to be in order, I had finished my works to the last detail and set them in their places, to the great satisfaction of the Duke and of all the city; whereas those of some who had thought more of my business than of their own, were set in place unfinished. When the festivities were over, besides four hundred crowns that were paid to me for my work, the Duke gave me three hundred that were taken away from those who had not carried their works to completion by the appointed time, according as had been arranged by agreement. And with those earnings and donations I married one of my sisters, and shortly afterwards settled another as a nun in the Murate at Arezzo, giving to the convent besides the dowry, or rather, alms, an altar-picture of the Annunciation by my hand, with a Tabernacle of the Sacrament accommodated in that picture, which was placed within their choir, where they perform their offices. Having then received from the Company of the Corpus Domini, at Arezzo, the commission for the altar-piece of the high-altar of S. Domenico, I painted in it Christ taken down from the Cross; and shortly afterwards I began for the Company of S. Rocco the altar-picture of their church, in Florence.

Now, while I was going on winning for myself honour, name, and wealth under the protection of Duke Alessandro, that poor lord was cruelly murdered, and there was snatched away from me all hope of that which I was promising to myself from Fortune by means of his favour; wherefore, having been robbed within a few years of Clement, Ippolito, and Alessandro, I resolved at the advice of M. Ottaviano that I would never again follow the fortune of Courts, but only art, although it would have been easy to establish myself with Signor Cosimo de' Medici, the new Duke. And so, while carrying forward in Arezzo the above-named altar-picture and the facade of S. Rocco, with the ornament, I was making preparations to go to Rome, when by means of M. Giovanni Pollastra--and by the will of God, to whom I have always commended myself, and to whom I attribute and have always attributed my every blessing--I was invited to Camaldoli, the centre of the Camaldolese Congregation, by the fathers of that hermitage, to see that which they were designing to have done in their church. Arriving there, I found supreme pleasure in the Alpine and eternal solitude and quietness of that holy place; and although I became aware at the first moment that those fathers of venerable aspect were beside themselves at seeing me so young, I took heart and talked to them to such purpose, that they resolved that they would avail themselves of my hand in the many pictures in oils and in fresco that were to be painted in their church of Camaldoli. Now, while they wished that before any other thing I should execute the picture of the high-altar, I proved to them with good reasons that it was better to paint first one of the lesser pictures, which were going in the tramezzo,[2] and that, having finished it, if it should please them, I would be able to continue. Besides that, I would not make any fixed agreement with them as to money, but said that if my work, when finished, were to please them, they might pay me for it as they chose, and, if it did not please them, they might return it to me, and I would keep it for myself most willingly; which condition appearing to them only too honest and loving, they were content that I should set my hand to the work. They said to me, then, that they wished to have in it Our Lady with her Son in her arms, and S. John the Baptist and S. Jerome, who were both hermits and lived in woods and forests; and I departed from the hermitage and made my way down to their Abbey of Camaldoli, where, having made a design with great rapidity, which pleased them, I began the altar-piece, and in two months had it completely finished and set in place, to the great satisfaction of those fathers, as they gave me to understand, and of myself. And in that period of two months I proved how much more one is assisted in studies by sweet tranquillity and honest solitude than by the noises of public squares and courts; I recognized, I say, my error in having in the past placed my hopes in men and in the follies and intrigues of this world. That altar-picture finished, then, they allotted to me straightway the rest of the tramezzo[3] of the church--namely, the scenes and other things in fresco-work to be painted there both high and low, which I was to execute during the following summer, for the reason that in the winter it would be scarcely possible to work in fresco at that altitude, among those mountains.

[Footnote 2: See note on p. 57, Vol. I.]

[Footnote 3: See note on p. 57, Vol. I.]

Meanwhile I returned to Arezzo and finished the altar-picture for S. Rocco, painting in it Our Lady, six Saints, and a God the Father with some thunderbolts in the hand, representing the pestilence, which He is in the act of hurling down, but S. Rocco and other Saints make intercession for the people. And in the facade are many figures in fresco, which, like the altar-picture, are no better than they should be. Then Fra Bartolommeo Gratiani, a friar of S. Agostino in Monte Sansovino, sent to invite me to Val di Caprese, and commissioned me to execute a great altar-piece in oils for the high-altar of the Church of S. Agostino in that same Monte Sansovino. And after we had come to an agreement, I made my way to Florence to see M. Ottaviano, where, staying several days, I had much ado to prevent myself from re-entering the service of the Court, as I was minded not to do. However, by advancing good reasons I won the battle, and I resolved that by hook or by crook, before doing anything else, I would go to Rome. But in that I did not succeed until I had made for that same Messer Ottaviano a copy of the picture in which formerly Raffaello da Urbino had portrayed Pope Leo, Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, and Cardinal de' Rossi, for the Duke was claiming the original, which was then in the possession of Messer Ottaviano; and the copy that I made is now in the house of the heirs of that lord, who on my departure for Rome wrote me a letter of exchange for five hundred crowns on Giovan Battista Puccini, which he was to pay me on demand, and said to me: "Use this money to enable you to attend to your studies, and afterwards, when you find it convenient, you can return it to me either in work or in cash, just as you please." Arriving in Rome, then, in February of the year 1538, I stayed there until the end of June, giving my attention in company with Giovan Battista Cungi of the Borgo, my assistant, to drawing all that I had left not drawn the other times that I had been in Rome, and particularly everything that was in the underground grottoes. Nor did I leave anything either in architecture or in sculpture that I did not draw and measure, insomuch that I can say with truth that the drawings that I made in that space of time were more than three hundred; and for many years afterwards I found pleasure and advantage in examining them, refreshing the memory of the things of Rome. And how much those labours and studies benefited me, was seen after my return to Tuscany in the altar-picture that I executed at Monte Sansovino, in which I painted with a somewhat better manner the Assumption of Our Lady, and at the foot, besides the Apostles who are about the sepulchre, S. Augustine and S. Romualdo. Having then gone to Camaldoli, according as I had promised those eremite fathers, I painted in the other altar-piece of the tramezzo[4] the Nativity of Jesus Christ, representing a night illumined by the Splendour of the newborn Christ, who is surrounded by some Shepherds adoring Him; in doing which, I strove to imitate with colours the rays of the sun, and copied the figures and all the other things in that work from Nature and in the proper light, to the end that they might be as similar as possible to the reality. Then, since that light could not pass above the hut, from there upwards and all around I availed myself of a light that comes from the splendour of the Angels that are in the air, singing Gloria in Excelsis Deo; not to mention that in certain places the Shepherds that are around make light with burning sheaves of straw, and also the Moon and the Star, and the Angel that is appearing to certain Shepherds. For the building, then, I made some antiquities after my own fancy, with broken statues and other things of that kind. In short, I executed that work with all my power and knowledge, and although I did not satisfy with the hand and the brush my great desire and eagerness to work supremely well, nevertheless the picture has pleased many; wherefore Messer Fausto Sabeo, a man of great learning who was then custodian of the Pope's Library, and some others after him, wrote many Latin verses in praise of that picture, moved perhaps more by affectionate feeling than by the excellence of the work. Be that as it may, if there be in it anything of the good, it was the gift of God. That altar-picture finished, those fathers resolved that I should paint in fresco on the facade the stories that were to be there, whereupon I painted over the door a picture of the hermitage, with S. Romualdo and a Doge of Venice who was a saintly man on one side, and on the other a vision which the above-named Saint had in that place where he afterwards made his hermitage; with some fantasies, grotesques, and other things that are to be seen there. Which done, they ordained that I should return in the summer of the following year to execute the picture of the high-altar.

[Footnote 4: See note on p. 57, Vol. I.]

Meanwhile the above-named Don Miniato Pitti, who was then Visitor to the Congregation of Monte Oliveto, having seen the altar-picture of Monte Sansovino and the works of Camaldoli, and finding in Bologna the Florentine Don Filippo Serragli, Abbot of S. Michele in Bosco, said to him that, since the refectory of that honoured monastery was to be painted, it appeared to him that the work should be allotted to me and not to another. Being therefore summoned to go to Bologna, I undertook to do it, although it was a great and important work; but first I desired to see all the most famous works in painting that were in that city, both by Bolognese and by others. The work of the head-wall of that refectory was divided into three pictures; in one was to be when Abraham prepared food for the Angels in the Valley of Mamre, in the second Christ in the house of Mary Magdalene and Martha, speaking with Martha, and saying to her that Mary had chosen the better part, and in the third was to be S. Gregory at table with twelve poor men, among whom he recognized one as Christ. Then, setting my hand to the work, I depicted in the last S. Gregory at table in a convent, served by White Friars of that Order, that I might be able to include those fathers therein, according to their wish. Besides that, I made in the figure of that saintly Pontiff the likeness of Pope Clement VII, and about him, among many Lords, Ambassadors, Princes, and other personages who stand there to see him eat, I portrayed Duke Alessandro de' Medici, in memory of the benefits and favours that I had received from him, and of his having been what he was, and with him many of my friends. And among those who are serving the poor men at table, I portrayed some friars of that convent with whom I was intimate, such as the strangers' attendants who waited upon me, the dispenser, the cellarer, and others of the kind; and so, also, the Abbot Serragli, the General Don Cipriano da Verona, and Bentivoglio. In like manner, I copied the vestments of that Pontiff from the reality, counterfeiting velvets, damasks, and other draperies of silk and gold of every kind; but the service of the table, vases, animals, and other things, I caused to be executed by Cristofano of the Borgo, as was told in his Life. In the second scene I sought to make the heads, draperies, and buildings not only different from the first, but in such a manner as to make as clearly evident as possible the lovingness of Christ in instructing the Magdalene, and the affection and readiness of Martha in arranging the table, and her lamentation at being left alone by her sister in such labours and service; to say nothing of the attentiveness of the Apostles, and of many other things worthy of consideration in that picture. As for the third scene, I painted the three Angels--coming to do this I know not how--within a celestial light which seems to radiate from them, while the rays of the sun surround the cloud in which they are. Of the three Angels the old Abraham is adoring one, although those that he sees are three; while Sarah stands laughing and wondering how that can come to pass which has been promised to her, and Hagar, with Ishmael in her arms, is departing from the hospitable shelter. The same radiance also gives light to some servants who are preparing the table, among whom are some who, not being able to endure that splendour, place their hands over their eyes and seek to shade themselves. Which variety of things, since strong shadows and brilliant lights give greater force to pictures, caused this one to have more relief than the other two, and, the colours being varied, they produced a very different effect. But would I had been able to carry my conception into execution, even as both then and afterwards, with new inventions and fantasies, I was always seeking out the laborious and difficult in art. This work, then, whatever it may be, was executed by me in eight months, together with a frieze in fresco, architectural ornaments, carvings, seat-backs, panels, and other adornments over the whole work and the whole refectory; and the price of all I was content to make two hundred crowns, as one who aspired more to glory than to gain. Wherefore M. Andrea Alciati, my very dear friend, who was then reading in Bologna, caused these words to be placed at the foot:

OCTONIS MENSIBUS OPUS AB ARETINO GEORGIO PICTUM, NON TAM PRECIO QUAM AMICORUM OBSEQUIS ET HONORIS VOTO, ANNO 1539 PHILIPPUS SERRALIUS PON. CURAVIT.