Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/184

176 offered a prize to be given to the master who, according to his judgment, should best acquit himself in those paintings. The stories being finished, therefore, his Holiness went to see them, and to judge how far each of the masters had exerted himself to merit the honour of the reward abovenamed. Cosimo Rosselli, feeling conscious that he was but feeble in respect of invention and design, had sought to conceal his deficiencies by covering his work with the finest ultra-marine blues and other gorgeous colours: he had, moreover, illuminated his pictures with a good store of gold, insomuch that there was not a tree, nor herb, nor vestment, nor cloud, but was glittering with light, for he had persuaded himself that the Pope, who had very little knowledge of art, would be thereby induced to give him the prize of victory. When the day arrived on which the works of all the masters were to be uncovered, that of Cosimo also was seen, and was received with peals of laughter and cutting jests by all the other masters, who jeered and bantered Posselli, instead of having compassion on him. But the laugh was turned against themselves in the end, for those colours, as Cosimo had expected, at the first glance, so dazzled the eyes of the Pope, who did not understand much of such matters, although he greatly delighted in them, that he judged Cosimo to have performed better than any one of the others, and accordingly commanded the prize to be given to him. His Holiness then ordered all the other masters to cover their pictures with the best azures that could be found, and to touch them with gold, that they might be equal to those of Cosimo in splendour and richness of colour. Whereupon the poor painters, in despair at having to be guided by the narrow intelligence of the Holy Father, set themselves to spoil what they had executed so well, and Cosimo laughed at those who but a short time before were making a jest of him.