Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/366

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In San Miniato, without the city of Florence, this master painted the lives of the Holy Fathers}} in one of the cloisters. This work was principally in terra verde, but was partly coloured; and here Paolo did not pay sufficient regard to the harmony, which the artist should study to preserve in stories that are represented with one colour only, seeing that he made his fields blue, his cities red, and the buildings varied, as best pleased his fancy, wherein he committed an error, for whatever we feign to make of stone, cannot and ought not to be tinted with other colours. It is said that when Paolo was occupied with this work, the abbot, who then ruled at San Miniato, gave him scarcely anything to eat but cheese, of which our painter, who was shy and timid, becoming tired, resolved to go no more to work at the cloister. The abbot sent to inquire the cause of his absence; but when Paolo heard the monks asking for him, he would never be at home, and if he chanced to meet any of the brothers of that Order in the streets of Florence, he hurried away with all speed, flying from them as fast as he was able. One day, two of the friars, more curious than the rest, and younger than Paolo, ran after and overtook him. They then inquired why he did not come to finish the work he had commenced, and wherefore he fled at the sight of one of their body? “You have so murdered me,” replied Paolo, “that I not only run away from you, but dare not stop near the house of any joiner, or even pass by one, and all that is owing to the bad management of your abbot, for what with his cheese-pies and cheese-soup, he has made me swallow such a mountain of cheese, that I am all turned into cheese myself, and tremble lest the carpenters should take me to make their glue with; of a surety, if I stayed with you any longer, I should be no more Paolo, but cheese.” The monks, departing from him with peals of laughter, told the story to their abbot, who prevailed on him to return to his work, with the promise that he would order him dishes not made of cheese. In the church of the Carmine, Paolo painted the altar of SS. Cosimo and Damiano, for the Pugliesi family, in the chapel of San Girolamo; and in the house of the Medici, he painted several pictures on canvas and in distemper, repre-