Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/278

270 people who, divesting themselves of their clothing, show their intention to be baptized. Among others, there is one, who is attempting to draw off his stocking, but the dampness of the skin from the heat of his person, causing it to cling to the leg, he has turned it over, laying his foot over the other leg, and drawing off the stocking with such labour and difficulty, that both are clearly apparent in his countenance—a curious conceit which at the time awakened admiration in all who saw it. We are told that the pope, occupied with his numerous avocations, neglected to give money to Mantegna so often as he could have desired it. The artist, therefore, having to paint certain Virtues in terretta among the figures of his work, represented that of Discretion with the rest; and the Pope, going one day to see the work, inquired of Andrea what that figure might be. To which Mantegna, replied, That is Discretion.” Whereupon the pontiff rejoined: “If thou wouldest have her to be well accompanied, set Patience beside her.” The painter understood what his holiness intended to convey, and never afterwards uttered a word; but when the work was finished, the Pope dismissed him with much favour, and sent him back to the duke with honourable rewards.

While Andrea worked in Pome, he painted, besides the chapel above named, a small picture of Our Lady with the Child sleeping in her arms. The landscape is a mountainous country with caverns, wherein are stone-cutters preparing stone for various kinds of work; all which is so elaborately depicted, and finished with so much patience, that one finds it difficult to conceive how so much can be effected by the point of a pencil. This picture is now in the possession of the most illustrious Signor Don Francesco Medici, prince of Florence, by whom it is accounted among his most valued rarities. Among the drawings in my book, is one