Finally, growing weary of the extraordinary labour that miniatures demand, Francesco devoted himself to painting and to architecture, in which he became very skilful, executing many works in Venice and in Padua. About that time the Bishop of Tournai, a very rich and noble Fleming, had come to Italy in order to study letters, to see the country, and to learn our manners and ways of living. This man, delighting much in architecture, and happening to be in Padua, became so enamoured of the Italian method of building that he resolved to take the modes of our architecture with him to his own country; and in order to facilitate this purpose, he drew Francesco, whose ability he had recognized, into his service with an honourable salary, meaning to take him to Flanders, where he intended to carry out many magnificent works. But when the time came to depart, poor Francesco, who had caused designs to be made of all the best and greatest and most famous buildings in Italy, was overtaken by death, while still young and the object of the highest expectations, leaving his patron much grieved by his loss. Francesco left an only brother, in whom, being a priest, the Dai Libri family became extinct, after producing in succession three men most excellent in their field of art. Nor have any disciples survived them to keep this art alive, excepting the above-mentioned churchman, Don Giulio, who, as we have related, learned it from Girolamo when he was working at Candiana, where the former was a friar; and this Don Giulio has since raised it to a height of excellence which very few have reached and no one has ever surpassed. I knew for myself some of the facts about the excellent and noble craftsmen mentioned above, but I would never have been able to learn the whole of what I have related of them if the great goodness and diligence of the reverend and most learned Fra Marco de' Medici of Verona, a man profoundly conversant with all the most noble arts and sciences, and with him Danese Cattaneo of Carrara, a sculptor of great excellence, both being very much my friends, had not given me that complete and perfect information which I have just written down, to the best of my ability, for the convenience and advantage of all who may read these our Lives, in which the courtesy of many friends, who have taken pains with the investigation of these matters in order to please me and to benefit the world, has been, as it still is, of great assistance to me. And let this be the end of the Lives of these craftsmen of Verona, the portraits of each of whom I have not been able to obtain, because this full notice did not reach my hands until I found myself almost at the close of my work. FOOTNOTE: [1] Canal of the slaughter-houses. [2] Small canal of the corn-magazines. [3] Scarpagnino. [4] See note on page 57, Vol. I. [5] See note on page 57, Vol. I. [6] See note on page 57, Vol. I. [7] From "terra," earth. [8] See note on page 57, Vol. I.