"Lives." He was principally induced, I believe, to offer such apologies for his practice, from the strictures on his paintings contained in the hall of the Chancery, which were finished in a hundred days, according to their author, in order to please the cardinal: but he ought then rather to have excused himself to Farnese, and to have requested him to employ some other artist, than to make his apology to posterity, and to intreat us to excuse his faults. He ought to have listened to the admonitions of his friends; among whom Caro did not fail to remind him of the injury his reputation might sustain by such hasty productions.[185] As he long superintended the decorations of the capital, ordered by Cosmo I. and Prince D. Francesco, and was assisted in them by many young men, Baldinucci affirms that he chiefly contributed to that dry manner which prevailed in Florence.[186] This opinion is probably not erroneous; for the example of a painter employed by the court was sufficient to seduce the rising generation from pristine diligence, to a more careless manner. After all, the Florentines who assisted him were chiefly the scholars of Bronzino, and, except two or three, they did not adopt the style of Vasari: some others also may have done so for a little time. Francesco Morandini, called Poppi, from his native place, was his disciple and imitator; and in his picture of the Conception, at S. Michelino, in the superior one of the Visitation, at S. Nicholas, and in his many other works, he appears a follower of Giorgio; except that he was more minute, and attended more to gay and cheerful composition. Giovanni Stradano Fiammingo, for ten years a dependant of Vasari, adopted his colouring, but imitated the design of Salviati; with whom and also with Daniele di Volterra he had lived in Rome. There is a Christ on the Cross, by him, at the Serviti, which is preferred to any other he painted at Florence, where he executed many designs for tapestry, and many prints. He had a fertile invention; he is praised by Vasari as highly as any other artist then in the service of the court, and is considered by Borghini among the eminent masters. Vasari after him retained Jacopo Zucchi, whose works exhibit none of the carelessness of Giorgio. He sometimes imitated him; but his style is better and more refined. He lived long at Rome, under the protection of Ferdinando, Cardinal de' Medici, in whose house, and more especially in the Rucellai palace, he painted in fresco with incredible diligence. His picture of the Birth of the Baptist, in S. Giovanni Decollato, is esteemed the best in that church; and in this piece he appears more a follower of Andrea, than of any other master. He usually introduced real portraits of distinguished characters and men of letters in his compositions, and he shewed a peculiar grace in the figures of children and of young people. Baglioni praises both this artist and his brother Francesco, who was a good artist in mosaic, and