Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/325

Rh Pietro was commissioned by Cardinal CarafFa, to paint an Assumption of Our Lady, with the Apostles in adoration around the tomb; and for the Abbot, Simone de’ Graziani of Borgo San Sepolcro, he painted a large picture which was executed in Florence; being afterwards transported to the church of San Gilio at Borgo, on the backs of porters, at very heavy cost. To Bologna Pietro sent a picture for the church of San Giovanni-in-Monte; in this there are two figures standing upright, with the Virgin appearing in the heavens above them,. By all these works the fame of the master became so widely diffused throughout Italy and in foreign lands, that he was invited to Rome, by Pope Sixtus IV., to his great glory; here he was appointed to work in the Sistine chapel, together with the other eminent artists who had also been invited by that Pontiff; and in company with Don Bartolommeo della Gatta, Abbot of San Clemente in Arezzo, he painted the story of Christ delivering the keys to Peter. The Nativity of the Saviour, his Baptism, with the Birth of Moses, and liis discovery by the daughter of Pharaoh, who takes him from the little ark of bulrushes, were also painted by this master. On the side whereon is the altar likewise, Pietro executed a mural painting of the Assumption of the Virgin, and in this he placed the portrait of Pope Sixtus, in a kneeling position. But these last mentioned works were destroyed during the pontificate of Pope Paul III., when the divine Michelagnolo painted his picture of the Last Judgment in that chapel. In the palace of the Pope, Pietro painted a ceiling in one of the apartments of the Torre Borgia; here he depicted certain stories from the life of Christ, with ornaments of foliage in chiaro-scuro, a work reputed at the