Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/123

Rh work by Pesello, representing the Trinity, with figures of San Zeno and San Jacopo; and in the houses of various citizens in dififerent parts of Florence, are numerous pictures, in square and circular forms, by the hand of the same master. Pesello was a man of moderate habits and kindly disposition, always ready to serve his friends, and to aid them with cordial good will, in every way possible to him. He married early, and had a son named Francesco, but who was called Pesellino. The latter also devoted himself to paint ing, imitating the manner of Fra Filippo with infinite zeal. From what we see of this artist, it is manifest that he would have performed much greater things had his life been extended, seeing that he was most studious in his habits, and scarcely gave himself rest from his labours either day or night; of his ability we have a specimen in the Chapel of the Noviciate of Santa Croce, a most admirable Predella namely, beneath the picture of Fra Filippo: the figures are small, but might have been executed by the hand of Fra Filippo himself. He painted numerous pictures in small figures, which are in different parts of Florence, and had attained to considerable reputation in that city, when he died, in the thirty-first year of his age, to the great grief of his father Pesello, who did not long remain after him, but followed his son when in his seventy-seventh year.

He who, with determined effort, pursues the path of virtue, although it be, as men say, rough and stormy and full of