Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 07 (of 10): Tribolo to Il SodomaVasari, Giorgio
History
Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 07 (of 10): Tribolo to Il Sodoma
Vasari, Giorgio
Art, Italian; Artists -- Italy -- Biography
Giorgio took great pains to persuade Cristofano to execute by himself
part of the designs for the scenes that were to go into the frieze,
but he would never do it. Wherefore, the while that Giorgio was
drawing them himself, Gherardi executed the buildings in two of the
panel-pictures, with much grace and beauty of manner, and such
perfection, that a master of great judgment, even if he had had the
cartoons before him, could not have done what Cristofano did. And, in
truth, there never was a painter who could do by himself, and without
study, the things that he contrived to do. After having finished the
execution of the buildings in the two panel-pictures, the while that
Vasari was carrying to completion the twenty stories from the
Apocalypse for the above-mentioned frieze, Cristofano, taking in hand
the panel-picture in which S. Gregory (whose head is a portrait of
Pope Clement VII) is eating with his twelve poor men, executed the
whole service of the table, all very lifelike and most natural. Then,
a beginning having been made with the third panel-picture, while
Stefano was occupied with the gilding of the ornamental frames of the
other two, a staging was erected upon two trestles of wood, from
which, while Vasari was painting on one side, in a glory of sunlight,
the three Angels that appeared to Abraham in the Valley of Mamre,
Cristofano painted some buildings on the other side. But he was always
making some contraption with stools and tables, and at times with
basins and pans upside down, on which he would climb, like the casual
creature that he was; and once it happened that, seeking to draw back
in order to look at what he had done, one of his feet gave way under
him, the whole contraption turned topsy-turvy, and he fell from a
height of five braccia, bruising himself so grievously that he had to
be bled and properly nursed, or he would have died. And, what was
worse, being the sort of careless fellow that he was, one night there
slipped off the bandages that were on the arm from which the blood had
been drawn, to the great danger of his life, so that, if Stefano, who
was sleeping with him, had not noticed this, it would have been all up
with him; and even so Stefano had something to do to revive him, for
the bed was a lake of blood, and he himself was reduced almost to his
last gasp. Vasari, therefore, taking him under his own particular
charge, as if he had been his brother, had him tended with the
greatest possible care, than which, indeed, nothing less would have
sufficed; and with all this he was not restored until that work was
completely finished. After that, returning to S. Giustino, Cristofano
completed some of the apartments of the Abbot there, which had been
left unfinished, and then executed at Citta di Castello, all with his
own hand, an altar-piece that had been allotted to Battista, his
dearest friend, and a lunette that is over the side-door of S.
Fiorido, containing three figures in fresco.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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