If conjecture were allowable in assigning masters to painters of the old schools, I should be inclined to reckon Daniele di Volterra rather the scholar of Mecherino, than of Razzi or Peruzzi. We know for certain that he studied at Siena in early life, when those three artists kept an open academy. Peruzzi was wholly a follower of Raffaello; Razzi disliked the Florentine style; and Beccafumi alone aspired to be esteemed a faithful imitator of Bonarruoti: by regarding him, therefore, as the master of Daniele, we can best account for the already noticed predilection of the latter for the style of Michelangiolo. No artist was capable of initiating him better in the art of casting in bronze than Mecherino; or afford him more frequent examples of that strong opposition of bright and sombre colours that appears in some works of Daniele. Yet I will not depart from the more correct rule which forbids us in such doubtful points to depart readily from history: for each painter was always free to choose his style; he might be directed in one path by his master, and drawn a different way by his own genius, or by accidental circumstances. Baldassare Peruzzi is one of the numerous individuals whose merit must not be measured by their good fortune. Born in indigent circumstances in the diocese of Volterra, but within the territory of Siena, and of a Sienese father,[286] he was nurtured amid difficulties, and through life was the perpetual sport of misfortune. Reckoned inferior to his rivals, because he was as modest and timid as they were arrogant and impudent; despoiled of his whole property in the sack of Rome; constrained to exist on a mere pittance at Siena, at Bologna, or at Rome,[287] he died when he began to be known, not without suspicion of being poisoned, and with the affliction of leaving a wife and six children almost beggars. His death demonstrated to the world better than his life the greatness of his genius; and the justness of his epitaph, in which he is compared to the ancients, is allowed by posterity. General consent ranks him among the best architects of his age; and he would also have been classed with the greatest painters, had he coloured as well as he designed, and had always been equal to himself; a thing he could not command during a life so chequered and wretched.