Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 08 (of 10): Bastiano to Taddeo ZuccheroVasari, Giorgio
History
Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 08 (of 10): Bastiano to Taddeo Zucchero
Vasari, Giorgio
Art, Italian; Artists -- Italy -- Biography
In his youth, then, Aristotile delighted, as the others of his house
have done, in the matters of architecture, and he therefore gave his
attention to measuring the ground-plans of buildings and with great
diligence to the study of perspective; in doing which he was much
assisted by a brother of his, called Giovan Francesco, who was employed
as architect in the building of S. Pietro, under Giuliano Leno, the
proveditor. Giovan Francesco, having drawn Aristotile to Rome, employed
him to keep the accounts in a great business that he had of furnaces for
lime and works in pozzolana and tufa, which brought him very large
profits; and in this way Bastiano lived for a time, without doing
anything but draw in the Chapel of Michelagnolo, and resort, by means of
M. Giannozzo Pandolfini, Bishop of Troia, to the house of Raffaello da
Urbino. After a time, Raffaello having made for that Bishop the design
of a palace which he wished to erect in the Via di S. Gallo at Florence,
the above-named Giovan Francesco was sent to put it into execution,
which he did with all the diligence wherewith it is possible for such a
work to be carried out. But in the year 1530, Giovan Francesco being
dead, and the siege of Florence in progress, that work, as we shall
relate, was left unfinished. Its completion was afterwards entrusted to
his brother Aristotile, who, as will be told, had returned to Florence
many and many a year before, after having amassed a large sum of money
under the above-named Giuliano Leno, in the business that his brother
had left him in Rome; with a part of which money Aristotile bought, at
the persuasion of Luigi Alamanni and Zanobi Buondelmonte, who were much
his friends, a site for a house behind the Convent of the Servites, near
Andrea del Sarto, where, with the intention of taking a wife and living
at leisure, he afterwards built a very commodious little house.
After returning to Florence, then, Aristotile, being much inclined to
perspective, to which he had given his attention under Bramante in Rome,
appeared to delight in scarcely any other thing; but nevertheless,
besides executing a portrait or two from the life, he painted in oils,
on two large canvases, the Eating of the Fruit by Adam and Eve and their
Expulsion from Paradise, which he did after copies that he had made from
the works painted by Michelagnolo on the vaulting of the Chapel in Rome.
These two canvases of Aristotile's, because of his having taken them
bodily from that place, were little extolled; but, on the other hand, he
was well praised for all that he did in Florence for the entry of Pope
Leo, making, in company with Francesco Granacci, a triumphal arch
opposite to the door of the Badia, with many scenes, which was very
beautiful. In like manner, at the nuptials of Duke Lorenzo de' Medici,
he was of great assistance in all the festive preparations, and
particularly in some prospect-views for comedies, to Franciabigio and
Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, who had charge of everything.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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