Part 21

From that time until the year 1550, when Julius III was elected Pope, Taddeo occupied himself with works of no great importance, yet with considerable profits. In which year of 1550, the year of the Jubilee, Ottaviano, the father of Taddeo, with his mother and another of their sons, went to Rome to take part in that most holy Jubilee, and partly, also, to see their son. After they had been there some weeks with Taddeo, on departing they left with him the boy that they had brought with them, who was called Federigo, to the end that he might cause him to study letters. But Taddeo judged him to be more fitted for painting, as indeed Federigo has since been seen to be from the excellent result that he has achieved; and so, after he had learned his first letters, Taddeo began to make him give his attention to design, with better fortune and support than he himself had enjoyed. Meanwhile Taddeo painted in the Church of S. Ambrogio de' Milanesi, on the wall of the high-altar, four stories of the life of that Saint, coloured in fresco and not very large, with a frieze of little boys, and women after the manner of terminal figures; which was a work of no little beauty. That finished, he painted a façade full of stories of Alexander the Great, beside S. Lucia della Tinta, near the Orso, beginning from his birth and continuing with five stories of the most noteworthy actions of that famous man; which work won him much praise, although it had to bear comparison with another façade near it by the hand of Polidoro.

About that time Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino, having heard the fame of the young man, who was his vassal, and desiring to give completion to the walls of the chapel in the Duomo of Urbino, wherein Battista Franco, as has been related, had painted the vaulting in fresco, caused Taddeo to be summoned to Urbino. And he, leaving Federigo in Rome, under the care of persons who might make him give his attention to his studies, and likewise another of his brothers, whom he placed with some friends to learn the goldsmith's art, went off to Urbino, where many attentions were paid him by that Duke; and then orders were given to him as to all that he was to design in the matter of the chapel and other works. But in the meantime the Duke, as General to the Signori of Venice, had to visit Verona and the other fortified places of that dominion, and he took with him Taddeo, who copied for him the picture by the hand of Raffaello da Urbino which, as has been related in another place, is in the house of the noble Counts of Canossa. And he afterwards began, also for his Excellency, a large canvas with the Conversion of S. Paul, which, unfinished as he left it, is still in the possession of his father Ottaviano at Sant'Agnolo.

Then, having returned to Urbino, he occupied himself for a time with continuing the designs for the above-mentioned chapel, which were of the life of Our Lady, as may be seen from some of them that are in the possession of his brother Federigo, drawn in chiaroscuro with the pen. But, whether it was that the Duke had not made up his mind or considered Taddeo to be too young, or for some other reason, Taddeo remained with him two years without doing anything but some pictures in a little study at Pesaro, a large coat of arms in fresco on the façade of the Palace, and a picture with a life-size portrait of the Duke, which were all beautiful works. Finally the Duke, having to depart for Rome to receive from Pope Julius III his baton as General of Holy Church, left directions that Taddeo was to proceed with the above-named chapel, and that he was to be provided with all that he required for that purpose. But the Duke's ministers, keeping him, as such men generally do, in want of everything, brought it about that Taddeo, after having lost two years of his time, had to go off to Rome, where, having found the Duke, he excused himself adroitly, without blaming anyone, and promised that he would not fail to do the work when the time came.

In the year 1551, Stefano Veltroni, of Monte Sansovino--having received orders from the Pope and from Vasari to have adorned with grotesques the apartments of the villa on the hill without the Porta del Popolo, which had belonged to Cardinal Poggio--summoned Taddeo, and caused him to paint in the central picture a figure of Opportunity, who, having seized Fortune by the locks, appears to be about to cut them with her shears (the device of that Pope); in which Taddeo acquitted himself very well. Then, Vasari having made before any of the others the designs for the court and the fountain at the foot of the new Palace, which were afterwards carried on by Vignuola and Ammanati and built by Baronino, Prospero Fontana, in painting many pictures there, as will be related hereafter, availed himself not a little of Taddeo in many things. And these were the cause of even greater benefits for him, for the Pope, liking his method of working, commissioned him to paint in some apartments, above the corridor of the Belvedere, some little figures in colour that served as friezes for those apartments; and in an open loggia, behind those that faced towards Rome, he painted in chiaroscuro on the wall, with figures as large as life, all the Labours of Hercules, which were destroyed in the time of Pope Paul IV, when other apartments and a chapel were built there. At the Vigna of Pope Julius, in the first apartments of the Palace, he executed some scenes in colour, and in particular one of Mount Parnassus, in the centre of the ceilings, and in the court of the same he painted in chiaroscuro two scenes of the history of the Sabines, which are one on either side of the principal door of variegated marble that leads into the loggia, whence one descends to the fountain of the Acqua Vergine; all which works were much commended and extolled.

Now Federigo, while Taddeo was in Rome with the Duke, had returned to Urbino, and he had lived there and at Pesaro ever since; but Taddeo, after the works described above, caused him to return to Rome, in order to make use of him in executing a great frieze in a hall, with others in other rooms, of the house of the Giambeccari on the Piazza di S. Apostolo, and in other friezes that he painted in the house of M. Antonio Portatore at the Obelisk of S. Mauro, all full of figures and other things, which were held to be very beautiful. Maestro Mattivolo, the Master of the Post, bought in the time of Pope Julius a site on the Campo Marzio, and built there a large and very commodious house, and then commissioned Taddeo to paint the façade in chiaroscuro; which Taddeo executed there three stories of Mercury, the Messenger of the Gods, which were very beautiful, and the rest he caused to be painted by others after designs by his own hand. Meanwhile M. Jacopo Mattei, having caused a chapel to be built in the Church of the Consolazione below the Campidoglio, allotted it to Taddeo to paint, knowing already how able he was; and he willingly undertook to do it, and for a small price, in order to show to certain persons, who went about saying that he could do nothing save façades and other works in chiaroscuro, that he could also paint in colour. Having then set his hand to that work, Taddeo would only touch it when he was in the mood and vein to do well, spending the rest of his time on works that did not weigh upon him so much in the matter of honour; and so he executed it at his leisure in four years. On the vaulting he painted in fresco four scenes of the Passion of Christ, of no great size, with most beautiful fantasies, and all so well executed in invention, design, and colouring, that he surpassed his own self; which scenes are the Last Supper with the Apostles, the Washing of Feet, the Prayer in the Garden, and Christ taken and kissed by Judas. On one of the walls at the sides he painted in figures large as life Christ Scourged at the Column, and on the other Pilate showing Him after the scourging to the Jews, saying "Ecce Homo"; above this last, in an arch, is the same Pilate washing his hands, and in the other arch, opposite to that, Christ led before Annas. On the altar-wall he painted the same Christ Crucified, and the Maries at the foot of the Cross, with Our Lady in a swoon; on either side of her is a Prophet, and in the arch above the ornament of stucco he painted two Sibyls; which four figures are discoursing of the Passion of Christ. And on the vaulting, about certain ornaments in stucco, are four half-length figures representing the Four Evangelists, which are very beautiful. The whole work, which was uncovered in the year 1556, when Taddeo was not more than twenty-six years of age, was held, as it still is, to be extraordinary, and he was judged by the craftsmen at that time to be an excellent painter.

That work finished, M. Mario Frangipane allotted to him his chapel in the Church of S. Marcello, in which Taddeo made use, as he also did in many other works, of the young strangers who are always to be found in Rome, and who go about working by the day in order to learn and to gain their bread; but none the less for the time being he did not finish it completely. The same master painted in fresco in the Pope's Palace, in the time of Paul IV, some rooms where Cardinal Caraffa lived, in the great tower above the Guard of Halberdiers; and two little pictures in oils of the Nativity of Christ and the Virgin flying with Joseph into Egypt, which were sent to Portugal by the Ambassador of that Kingdom. The Cardinal of Mantua, wishing to have painted with the greatest possible rapidity the whole interior of his Palace beside the Arco di Portogallo, allotted that work to Taddeo for a proper price; and Taddeo, beginning it with the help of a good number of men, in a short time carried it to completion, showing that he had very great judgment in being able to employ so many different brains harmoniously in so great a work, and in managing the various manners in such a way, that the work appears as if all by the same hand. In short, Taddeo satisfied in that undertaking, with great profit to himself, the Cardinal and all who saw it, disappointing the expectations of those who could not believe that he was likely to succeed amid the perplexities of such a great work.

In like manner, he painted some scenes with figures in fresco for M. Alessandro Mattei in some recesses in the apartments of his Palace near the Botteghe Scure, and some others he caused to be executed by his brother Federigo, to the end that he might become accustomed to the work. Which Federigo, having taken courage, afterwards executed by himself a Mount Parnassus in the recess of a ceiling in the house of a Roman gentleman called Stefano Margani, below the steps of the Araceli. Whereupon Taddeo, seeing Federigo confident and working by himself from his own designs, without being assisted more than was reasonable by anyone, contrived to have a chapel allotted to him by the men of S. Maria dell'Orto a Ripa, making it almost appear that he intended to do it himself, for the reason that it would never have been given to Federigo alone, who was still a mere lad. Taddeo, then, in order to satisfy these men, painted there the Nativity of Christ, and Federigo afterwards executed all the rest, acquitting himself in such a manner that there could be seen the beginning of that excellence which is now made manifest in him.

In those same times the Duke of Guise, who was then in Rome, desiring to take an able and practised painter to paint his Palace in France, Taddeo was proposed to him; whereupon, having seen some of his works, and liking his manner, he agreed to give him a salary of six hundred crowns a year, on condition that Taddeo, after finishing the work that he had in hand, should go to France to serve him. And so Taddeo would have done, the money for his preparations having been deposited in a bank, if it had not been for the wars that broke out in France at that time, and shortly afterwards the death of that Duke. Taddeo then went back to finish the work for Frangipane in S. Marcello, but he was not able to work for long without being interrupted, for, the Emperor Charles V having died, preparations were made for giving him most honourable obsequies in Rome, fit for an Emperor of the Romans, and to Taddeo were allotted many scenes from the life of that Emperor, and also many trophies and other ornaments, which were made by him of pasteboard in a very sumptuous and magnificent manner; and he finished the whole in twenty-five days. For his labours, therefore, and those of Federigo and others who had assisted him, six hundred crowns of gold were paid to him.

Shortly afterwards he painted two great chambers at Bracciano for Signor Paolo Giordano Orsini, which were very beautiful and richly adorned with stucco-work and gold; in one the stories of Cupid and Psyche, and in the second, which had been begun previously by others, some stories of Alexander the Great; and others that remained for him to paint, continuing the history of the same Alexander, he caused to be executed by his brother Federigo, who acquitted himself very well. And then he painted in fresco for M. Stefano del Bufalo, in his garden near the fountain of Trevi, the Muses around the Castalian Fount and Mount Parnassus, which was held to be a beautiful work.

The Wardens of Works of the Madonna of Orvieto, as has been related in the Life of Simone Mosca, had caused some chapels with ornaments of marble and stucco to be built in the aisles of their church, and had also had some altar-pieces executed by Girolamo Mosciano of Brescia; and, having heard the fame of Taddeo by means of friends, they sent a summons to him, and he went to Orvieto, taking with him Federigo. There, settling to work, he executed two great figures on the wall of one of those chapels, one representing the Active Life, and the other the Contemplative, which were despatched with a very sure facility of hand, in the manner wherein he executed works to which he gave little study; and while Taddeo was painting those figures, Federigo painted three little stories of S. Paul in the recess of the same chapel. At the end of which, both having fallen ill, they went away, promising to return in September. Taddeo returned to Rome, and Federigo to Sant'Agnolo with a slight fever; which having passed, at the end of two months he also returned to Rome. There, Holy Week being close at hand, the two together set to work in the Florentine Company of S. Agata, which is behind the Banchi, and painted in four days on the vaulting and the recess of that oratory, for a rich festival that was prepared for Holy Thursday and Good Friday, scenes in chiaroscuro of the whole Passion of Christ, with some Prophets and other pictures, which caused all who saw them to marvel.

After that, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, having brought very near completion his Palace of Caprarola, with Vignuola as architect, of whom there will be an account in a short time, gave the charge of painting it all to Taddeo, on these conditions: that, since Taddeo did not wish to abandon his other works in Rome, he should be obliged to make all the cartoons, designs, divisions, and arrangements for the works in painting and in stucco that were to be executed in that place; that the men who were to carry them into execution should be chosen by Taddeo, but paid by the Cardinal; and that Taddeo should be obliged to work there himself for two or three months in the year, and to go there as many times as it might be necessary to see how things were progressing, and to retouch all that was not to his satisfaction. And for all these labours the Cardinal promised him a salary of two hundred crowns a year. Whereupon Taddeo, having so honourable an appointment and the support of so great a lord, determined that he would give himself some peace of mind, and would no longer accept any mean work in Rome, as he had done up to that time; desiring, above all, to avoid the censure that many men of art laid upon him, saying that from a certain grasping avarice he would accept any kind of work, in order to gain with the arms of others that which would have been to many of them an honest means to enable them to study, as he himself had done in his early youth. Against which reproaches Taddeo used to defend himself by saying that he did it on account of Federigo and the other brothers that he had on his shoulders, desiring that they should learn with his assistance.

Having thus resolved to serve Farnese and also to finish the chapel in S. Marcello, he obtained for Federigo from M. Tizio da Spoleti, the master of the household to the above-named Cardinal, the commission to paint the façade of a house that he had on the Piazza della Dogana, near S. Eustachio; which was very welcome to Federigo, for he had never desired anything so much as to have some work altogether for himself. On one part of the façade, therefore, he painted in colours the scene of S. Eustachio causing himself to be baptized with his wife and children, which was a very good work; and on the centre of the façade he painted the same Saint, when, while hunting, he sees Jesus Christ on the Cross between the horns of a stag. Now since Federigo, when he executed that work, was not more than twenty-eight[22] years of age, Taddeo, who reflected that the work was in a public place, and that it was of great importance to the credit of Federigo, not only went sometimes to see him at his painting, but also at times insisted on retouching and improving some part. Wherefore Federigo, after having had patience for a time, finally, carried away on one occasion by the anger natural in one who would have preferred to work by himself, seized a mason's hammer and dashed to the ground something (I know not what) that Taddeo had painted; and in his rage he stayed some days without going back to the house. Which being heard by the friends of both the one and the other of them, they so went to work that the two were reconciled, on the understanding that Taddeo should be able to set his hand on the designs and cartoons of Federigo and correct them at his pleasure, but never the works that he might execute in fresco, in oils, or in any other medium.

[Footnote 22: An error of the copyist or printer for eighteen.]

Federigo having then finished the work of that house, it was universally extolled, and won him the name of an able painter. After that, Taddeo was ordered to repaint in the Sala de' Palafrenieri those Apostles which Raffaello had formerly executed there in terretta, and which had been thrown to the ground by Paul IV; and he, having painted one, caused all the others to be executed by his brother Federigo, who acquitted himself very well. Next, they painted together a frieze in fresco-colours in one of the halls of the Palace of the Araceli. Then, a proposal being discussed, about the same time that they were working at the Araceli, to give to Signor Federigo Borromeo as a wife the Lady Donna Virginia, the daughter of Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino, Taddeo was sent to take her portrait, which he did excellently well; and before he departed from Urbino he made all the designs for a credence, which that Duke afterwards caused to be made in clay at Castel Durante, for sending to King Philip of Spain. Having returned to Rome, Taddeo presented to the Pope that portrait, which pleased him well enough; but such was the discourtesy of that Pontiff, or of his ministers, that the poor painter was not recompensed even for his expenses.

In the year 1560 the Pope expected in Rome the Lord Duke Cosimo and the Lady Duchess Leonora, his consort, and proposed to lodge their Excellencies in the apartments formerly built by Innocent VIII, which look out upon the first court of the Palace and that of S. Pietro, and have in front of them loggie that look out on the piazza where the Benediction is given; and Taddeo received the charge of painting the pictures and some friezes that were to be executed there, and of overlaying with gold the new ceilings that had been made in place of the old ones, which had been consumed by time. In that work, which was certainly a great and important undertaking, Federigo, to whom his brother Taddeo gave the charge of almost the whole, acquitted himself very well; but he incurred a great danger, for, as he was painting grotesques in those loggie, he fell from a staging that rested on the main part of the scaffolding, and was near coming to an evil end.

No long time passed before Cardinal Emulio, to whom the Pope had given the charge of the matter, commissioned many young men, to the end that the work might be finished quickly, to paint the little palace that is in the wood of the Belvedere, which was begun in the time of Pope Paul IV with a most beautiful fountain and many ancient statues as ornaments, after an architectural design by Pirro Ligorio. The young men who worked (with great credit to themselves) in that place, were Federigo Barocci of Urbino, a youth of great promise, and Leonardo Cungi and Durante del Nero, both of Borgo San Sepolcro, who executed the apartments of the first floor. At the head of the staircase, which was made in a spiral shape, the first room was painted by Santi Titi, a painter of Florence, who acquitted himself very well; the larger room, which is beside the first, was painted by the above-named Federigo Zucchero, the brother of Taddeo; and the Sclavonian Giovanni dal Carso, a passing good master of grotesques, executed another room beyond it. But, although each of the men named above acquitted himself very well, nevertheless Federigo surpassed all the others in some stories of Christ that he painted there, such as the Transfiguration, the Marriage of Cana in Galilee, and the Centurion kneeling before Christ. And of two that were still wanting, one was painted by Orazio Sammacchini, a Bolognese painter, and the other by a certain Lorenzo Costa of Mantua. The same Federigo Zucchero painted in that place the little loggia that looks out over the fish-pond. And then he painted a frieze in the principal hall of the Belvedere (to which one ascends by the spiral staircase), with stories of Moses and Pharaoh, beautiful to a marvel; the design for which work, drawn and coloured with his own hand in a most beautiful drawing, Federigo himself gave not long since to the Reverend Don Vincenzio Borghini, who holds it very dear as a drawing by the hand of an excellent painter. In the same place, also, Federigo painted the Angel slaying the first-born in Egypt, availing himself, in order to finish it the quicker, of the help of many of his young men. But when those works came to be valued by certain persons, the labours of Federigo and the others were not rewarded as they should have been, because there are among our craftsmen in Rome, as well as in Florence and everywhere else, some most malignant spirits who, blinded by prejudice and envy, are not able or not willing to recognize the merits of the works of others and the deficiency of their own; and such persons are very often the reason that the young men of fine genius, becoming dismayed, grow cold in their studies and their work. After these works, Federigo painted in the Office of the Ruota, about an escutcheon of Pope Pius IV, two figures larger than life, Justice and Equity, which were much extolled; thus giving time to Taddeo, meanwhile, to attend to the work of Caprarola and the chapel in S. Marcello.