Part 20

I begin, then, by saying that at the entrance of the Prince's Palace there is a marble portal composed in the Doric Order, and built after designs and models by the hand of Perino, with all its appurtenances of pedestals, socles, shafts, capitals, architrave, frieze, cornice and pediment, and with some most beautiful seated figures of women, who are supporting an escutcheon. The masonry and carving of this work were executed by Maestro Giovanni da Fiesole, and the figures were finished to perfection by Silvio, the sculptor of Fiesole, a bold and resolute master. Entering within the portal, one finds over the vestibule a vault covered with stucco-work, varied scenes, and grotesques, and little arches in each of which are scenes of war and various kinds of battles, some fighting on foot and others on horseback, and all wrought with truly extraordinary diligence and art. On the left one finds the staircase, which has decorations of little grotesques after the antique that could not be richer or more beautiful, with various scenes and little figures, masks, children, animals, and other things of fancy, executed with that invention and judgment that always marked his work, insomuch that of their kind they may well be called divine. Having ascended the staircase, one comes into a most beautiful loggia, which has at each end a very handsome door of stone; and over each of these doors, in the pediment, are painted two figures, one male and the other female, represented in directly opposite attitudes, one showing the front view and the other the back. The vaulting has five arches, and is wrought superbly in stucco, and it is also divided by pictures in certain ovals, containing scenes executed with the most perfect beauty that could be achieved; and the walls are painted down to the floor with many seated figures of captains in armour, some drawn from life and some from imagination, and representing all the ancient and modern captains of the house of Doria, and above them are large letters of gold, which run thus--"Magni viri, maximi duces, optima fecere pro patria." In the first hall, which opens into the loggia and is entered by one of the two doors, that on the left hand, there are most beautiful ornaments of stucco on the corners of the vaulting, and in the centre there is a large scene of the Shipwreck of AEneas in the sea, in which are nude figures, living and dead, in attitudes of infinite variety, besides a good number of ships and galleys, some sound and some shattered by the fury of the tempest; not without beautiful considerations in the figures of the living, who are striving to save themselves, and expressions of terror that are produced in their features by the struggle with the waves, the danger of death, and all the emotions aroused by the perils of the sea. This was the first scene and the first work that Perino began for the Prince. It is said that when he arrived in Genoa, Girolamo da Treviso had already appeared there in advance of him in order to execute certain pictures, and was painting a wall that faced towards the garden. And after Perino had begun to draw the cartoon for the scene of the Shipwreck that has been described above, while he was taking his time about it, amusing himself and seeing Genoa, and labouring only at intervals at the cartoon, although a great part was finished in various ways and those nudes were drawn, some in chiaroscuro, some in charcoal, and others in black chalk, some being drawn in imitation of gradine-work, others shaded, and others again only outlined; while, I say, Perino was going on in this way, without beginning to paint, Girolamo da Treviso murmured against him, saying, "Cartoons, and nothing but cartoons! I have my art at the tip of my brush." Decrying him very often in this or some other similar manner, it came to the ears of Perino, who, taking offence, straightway caused his cartoon to be fixed to the vaulting where the scene was to be painted, and the boards of his staging to be removed in many places, to the end that the work might be seen from below; and then he threw open the hall. Which hearing, all Genoa ran to see it, and, amazed by Perino's grand design, they praised him to the skies. Thither, among others, went Girolamo da Treviso, who saw what he had never thought to see from the hand of Perino; whereupon, dumbfoundered by the beauty of the work, he departed from Genoa without asking leave of Prince Doria, and returned to Bologna, where he lived. Perino was thus left alone in the service of the Prince, and finished that hall, painting it in oils on the surface of the walls; and it was held to be, as indeed it is, a thing unrivalled in its beauty, with its lovely work in stucco in the centre of the vaulting and all around, even below the lunettes, as I have described. In the other hall, into which one enters by the right-hand door in the loggia, he executed on the vaulting works in stucco almost similar in design to those of the other, and painted pictures in fresco of Jove slaying the Giants with his thunderbolts, in which are many very beautiful nudes, larger than life. In the Heaven, likewise, are all the Gods, who are making gestures of great vivacity and truly appropriate to their natures, amid the terrible uproar of the thunder; besides which, the stucco-work is executed with supreme diligence, and the fresco-colouring could not be more beautiful, seeing that Perino was very able--indeed, a perfect master--in that field. Near this he adorned four chambers, the ceilings of which are all wrought in stucco, and distributed among them, in fresco, are the most beautiful fables from Ovid, which have all the appearance of reality, nor could any one imagine the beauty, the abundance, the variety, and the great numbers of the little figures, animals, foliage, and grotesques that are in them, all executed with lively invention. Beside the other hall, likewise, he adorned four more chambers, but only directing the work, which was carried out by his assistants, although he gave them the designs both of the stucco-decorations and of the scenes, figures, and grotesques, upon which a vast number of them worked, some little and some much; such as Luzio Romano, who did much work in stucco there and many grotesques, and a number of Lombards. Let it suffice to say that there is no room there that has not something by his hand and is not full of ornaments, even to the space below the vaulting, with various compositions full of children, bizarre masks, and animals, which all defies description; not to mention that the little studies, the antechambers, the closets, and all other parts of the palace, are painted and made beautiful. From the palace one passes into the garden and into a low building, which has the most ornate decorations in all the rooms, even below the ceilings, and so also the halls, chambers, and anterooms, all adorned by the same hand. In this work Pordenone also took a part, as I said in his Life, and likewise Domenico Beccafumi of Siena, a very rare painter, who showed that he was not inferior to any of the others, although the works by his hand that are in Siena are the most excellent among the vast number that he painted.

But to return to the works that Perino executed after those that he did in the Palace of the Prince; he executed a frieze in a room in the house of Giannetin Doria, containing most beautiful women, and he did many works for various gentlemen throughout the city, both in fresco and in oil-colours. He painted a most beautiful altar-piece, very finely designed, for S. Francesco, and another for a church called S. Maria "de Consolatione," at the commission of a gentleman of the house of Baciadonne: in which picture he painted the Nativity of Christ, a work that is much extolled, but it was placed in a position so dark, that, by reason of the light not being good enough, one is not able to recognize its perfection, and all the more because Perino strove to paint it in a dark manner, so that it has need of a strong light. He also made drawings of the greater part of the AEneid, with the stories of Dido, from which tapestries were woven; and he likewise drew beautiful ornaments for the poops of galleys, which were carved and finished to perfection by Carota and Tasso, wood-carvers of Florence, who proved excellently well how able they were in that art. And in addition to all these things he also executed a vast number of works on cloth for the galleys of the Prince, and the largest standards that could be made for their adornment and embellishment. Wherefore he was so beloved by that Prince for his fine qualities, that, if he had continued to serve him, the Prince would have richly rewarded his abilities.

But while he was working in Genoa, the fancy came to him to fetch his wife from Rome, and so he bought a house in Pisa, being pleased with that city and half thinking of choosing it as his place of habitation when old age should come upon him. Now at that time the Warden of the Duomo at Pisa was M. Antonio di Urbano, who had a very great desire to embellish that temple, and had already caused a beginning to be made with some very beautiful ornaments of marble for the chapels of the church, which had been executed by the hand of Stagio da Pietrasanta, a very able and well practised carver of marble: removing some old, clumsy, and badly proportioned chapels that were there. Having thus made a beginning, the Warden proposed to fill up those ornaments in the interior with altar-pieces in oils, and on the outer side with a series of scenes in fresco and decorations in stucco, by the hands of the best and most excellent masters that he could find, without grudging any expense that might be incurred. He had already set to work on the sacristy, which he had placed in the great recess behind the high-altar, and there the ornamentation of marble was already finished, and many pictures had been painted by the Florentine painter Giovanni Antonio Sogliani, the rest of which, together with the altar-pieces and the chapels that were wanting, were finished many years afterwards by order of M. Sebastiano della Seta, the Warden of the Duomo in those days.

At that time Perino returned from Genoa to Pisa, and, having seen that beginning, at the instance of Battista del Cervelliera, a person well conversant with art and a most ingenious master of wood-carving, perspective, and inlaying, he was presented to the Warden. After they had discoursed together on the subject of the works of the Duomo, Perino was asked to paint an altar-piece for an ornament immediately within the ordinary door of entrance, the ornamental frame being already finished, and above that a scene of S. George slaying the Dragon and delivering the King's Daughter. Perino therefore made a most beautiful design, which included a row of children and other ornaments in fresco between one chapel and the other, and niches with Prophets and scenes of various kinds; and this design pleased the Warden. And so, having made the cartoon for one of them, the first one, that opposite to the door mentioned above, he began to execute it in colour, and finished six children, which are very well painted. He was to have continued this right round, which would have made a very rich and very beautiful decoration; and the whole work together would have proved to be something very handsome. But he was seized with a desire to return to Genoa, where he had involved himself in love affairs and other pleasures, to which he was inclined at certain times: and on his departure he gave to the Nuns of S. Maffeo a little altar-piece that he had painted for them in oils, which is now in their possession in the convent. Then, having arrived in Genoa, he stayed there many months, executing other works for the Prince.

His departure from Pisa displeased the Warden greatly, and even more the circumstance that the work remained unfinished; wherefore he did not cease to write to him every day that he should return, or to make inquiries from Perino's wife, whom he had left in Pisa. But finally, perceiving that the matter would never end, Perino neither answering nor returning, he allotted the altar-piece of that chapel to Giovanni Antonio Sogliani, who finished it and set it into its place. Not long after this Perino returned to Pisa, and, seeing the work of Sogliani, flew into a rage, and would on no account continue what he had begun, saying that he did not choose that his pictures should serve as ornaments for those of other masters; wherefore, so far as concerned him, that work remained unfinished. Giovanni Antonio carried it on to such purpose that he painted four altar-pieces: but these, at a later date, appeared to Sebastiano della Seta, the new Warden, to be all in the same manner, and somewhat less beautiful than the first, and he allotted to Domenico Beccafumi of Siena--after proving his worth from some pictures that he painted round the sacristy, which are very beautiful--an altar-piece which he executed in Pisa. This not giving as much satisfaction as the first pictures, he caused the two last that were wanting to be painted by Giorgio Vasari of Arezzo; and they were placed at the two doors beside the corner-walls of the main facade of the church. Of these, as well as of many other works, both large and small, that are dispersed throughout Italy and various places abroad, it does not become me to say more, and I will leave the right of free judgment about them to all who have seen or may see them. The loss of this work caused real vexation to Perino, he having already made the designs for it, which gave promise that it would prove to be something worthy of him, and likely to give that temple great fame over and above that of its antiquities, and also to make Perino immortal.

During the many years of his sojourn in Genoa, although he drew both profit and pleasure from that city, Perino had grown weary of it, as he remembered Rome in the happy days of Leo. But although, during the lifetime of Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, he had received letters inviting him into his service, and he had been disposed to enter it, the death of that lord brought it about that he hesitated to repatriate himself. While matters stood thus, with his many friends urging his return, himself desiring it infinitely more than any of them, and several letters being exchanged, one morning, in the end, the fancy took him, and without saying a word he set off from Pisa and made his way to Rome. There, after making himself known to the most reverend Cardinal Farnese, and then to Pope Paul, he stayed many months without doing anything; first, because he was put off from one day to another, and then because he was attacked by some infirmity in one of his arms, on account of which he spent several hundreds of crowns, to say nothing of the discomfort, before he could be cured of it. Wherefore, having no one to maintain him, and being vexed by his cold welcome from the Court, he was tempted many times to go away; but Molza and many other friends exhorted him to have patience, telling him that Rome was no longer what she had been, and that now she expected that a man should be exhausted and weary of her before she would choose and cherish him as her own, and particularly if he were pursuing the path of some fine art.

At this time M. Pietro de' Massimi bought a chapel in the Trinita, with the vaulting and the lunettes painted and adorned with stucco, and the altar-piece painted in oils, all by Giulio Romano and Perino's brother-in-law, Giovan Francesco; and that gentleman was desirous to have it finished. In the lunettes were four stories of S. Mary Magdalene in fresco, and in the altar-piece in oils was Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene in the form of a gardener; and M. Pietro first caused a gilt frame of wood to be made for the altar-piece, which had a miserable one of stucco, and then allotted the walls to Perino, who, having caused the staging and the screen to be erected, set his hand to the work, and after many months brought it to completion. He made a design of bizarre and beautiful grotesques, partly in low-relief and partly painted; and he executed two little scenes of no great size, one on each wall, surrounding them with an ornament in stucco of great variety. In one scene was the Pool of Bethesda, with all the cripples and sick persons, and the Angel who comes to move the waters, the porticoes seen most beautifully foreshortened in perspective, and the movements and vestments of the priests, all painted with great grace and vivacity, although the figures are not very large. In the other, he painted the Raising of Lazarus after he had been dead four days, wherein he is seen newly restored to life, and still marked by the pallor and fear of death: and round him are many who are unswathing him, and not a few who are marvelling, and others struck with awe, besides which the scene is adorned with some little temples that recede into the distance, executed with supreme lovingness, as are also the works in stucco all around. There are likewise four very small scenes, two to each wall, and one on either side of the larger scene; in one of which is the Centurion beseeching Christ that He should heal with a word his son who is dying, in another Christ driving the traders from the Temple, in a third the Transfiguration, and in the last a similar scene. And on the projections of the pilasters within the chapel he painted four figures in the guise of Prophets, which, in their proportions, their excellence, and their beauty, are as well executed and finished as they could well be. In a word, the whole work was carried out with such diligence, and is so delicate, that it resembles miniature rather than painting. In it may be seen much charm and vivacity of colouring, and signs of great patience in its execution, revealing that true love which should be felt for art; and he painted this whole work with his own hand, although he had a great part of the stucco-work executed after his designs by Guglielmo Milanese, whom he had formerly had with him at Genoa, loving him much, and once even offering to give him his daughter in marriage. This Guglielmo, in reward for restoring the antiquities of the house of Farnese, has now been made Friar of the Piombo, in the place of Fra Sebastiano Viniziano.

I must not omit to tell that against one wall of this chapel was a most beautiful tomb of marble, with a dead woman of marble, beautifully carved by the sculptor Bologna, on the sarcophagus, and two little naked boys at the sides. The countenance of that woman was a lifelike portrait of a very famous courtezan of Rome, who left that memorial of herself, which was removed by the friars because they felt scruples that such a woman should have been laid to rest there with so much honour.

This work, with many designs that he made, was the reason that the very reverend Cardinal Farnese began to give him an allowance and to make use of him in many works. By order of Pope Paul, a chimney-piece that was in the Chamber of the Burning of the Borgo was placed in that of the Segnatura, where there were the panellings with perspective views in wood executed by the hand of the carver Fra Giovanni for Pope Julius. Raffaello had painted both of those chambers; but it became necessary to repaint all the base to the scenes in the Chamber of the Segnatura, which is that in which is the picture of Mount Parnassus. On which account a decorative design in imitation of marble was painted by Perino, with various terminal figures, festoons, masks, and other ornaments; and, in certain spaces, scenes painted to look like bronze, which are very beautiful for works in fresco. In these scenes, even as above them were Philosophers discoursing on Philosophy, Theologians on Theology, and Poets on Poetry, were all the actions of those who have been eminent in those professions. And although he did not execute them all with his own hand, he retouched them so much "a secco," besides making perfectly finished cartoons, that they may almost be said to be entirely by his hand; which method he employed because, being troubled by a catarrh, he was not fit for so much labour. Whereupon the Pope, recognizing that he deserved something both on account of his age and for all his work, and hearing him much recommended, gave him an allowance of twenty-five ducats a month, which lasted up to his death, on the condition that he should have charge of the Palace and of the house of the Farnese family.

By this time Michelagnolo Buonarroti had uncovered the wall with the Last Judgment in the Papal Chapel, and there remained still unpainted the base below, where there was to be fixed a screen of arras woven in silk and gold, like the tapestries that adorn the Chapel. Wherefore, the Pope having ordained that the weaving should be done in Flanders, it was arranged with the consent of Michelagnolo that Perino should begin to paint a canvas of the same size, which he did, executing in it women, children and terminal figures, holding festoons, and all very lifelike, with the most bizarre things of fancy; but this work, which was truly worthy of him and of the divine picture that it was to adorn, remained unfinished after his death in some apartments of the Belvedere.

After this, Antonio da San Gallo having finished the building of the Great Hall of Kings in front of the Chapel of Sixtus IV in the Papal Palace, Perino divided the ceiling into a large pattern of octagonal compartments, crosses, and ovals, both sunk and in relief; which done, Perino was also commissioned to adorn it with stucco-work, with the richest and most beautiful ornaments that could be produced by all the resources of that art. He thus began it, and in the octagons, in place of rosettes, he made four little boys in full relief, who, with their feet pointing to the centre and their arms forming a circle, make a most beautiful rosette, and in the rest of the compartments are all the devices of the house of Farnese, with the arms of the Pope in the centre of the vaulting. And this work in stucco may be said with truth to have surpassed in mastery of execution, in beauty, and in delicacy, all those that have ever been done by ancients or moderns, and to be truly worthy of the head of the Christian religion. After the designs of the same man, likewise, the glass windows were executed by Pastorino da Siena, an able master of that craft; and Perino caused the walls below to be prepared with very beautiful ornaments in stucco, intending to paint scenes there with his own hand, which were afterwards continued by the painter Daniello Ricciarelli of Volterra, who, if death had not cut short the noble aspirations that he had, would have proved how the moderns have the courage not only to equal the ancients with their works, but perhaps even to surpass them by a great measure.