Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/323

Rh therefore desired that Pietro should use them frequently in all the above-mentioned works; he was nevertheless so mean and mistrustful that he dared not confide the colour to Pietro, but would always be present when the latter was using the azure blue. The master therefore, who was by nature upright and honest, nor in any way covetous of another man’s goods, took the distrust of the Prior very ill, and determined to make him ashamed of it. He accordingly placed a bowl of water beside him whenever he had prepared draperies or other parts of the picture to be painted in blue and white, calling every now and then on the Prior (who turned grudgingly to his little bag of the colour), to put ultra-marine into the vase or bottle wherein it was tempered with water: then setting to work, at every second pencil-full he washed his brush into the bowl beside him, wherein there remained by this means, more colour than the painter had bestowed on his work. The Prior finding his bag becoming empty, while the work made but little show, cried out once and again, time after time,—“Oh, what a quantity of ultra-marine is swallowed up by this plaster.” “You see for yourself how it is,” replied Pietro, and the Prior went away. When he was gone, the master gathered the ultra-marine from the bottom of the bowl, and when he thought the proper time for doing so was come, he returned it to the Prior,—saying to him. “This belongs to you, father, learn to trust honest men, for such never deceive those who confide in them, although they well know how to circumvent distrustful persons like yourself, when they desire to do so.”

By the works here executed and many others, Pietro acquired so great a reputation, that he was almost compelled to go to Siena, Avhere he painted a very large picture in the church of San Francesco, which was considered to be extremely beautiful, as was another by his hand in that of Sant’ Agostino; the latter representing Christ Crucified, with certain Saints, A short time after this, Pietro painted a picture of St. Jerome “in penitence,” for the church of San