Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/419

Rh that of painting the hair with great facility, and has shown to later artists the true method whereby the difficulties of accomplishing this point may be overcome, an advantage for wffiich all succeeding painters are largely indebted to him. It was indeed at the instance of the artists belonging to our vocation that Messer Fabio Segni, a Florentine gentleman, composed the following verses:— Hujus cum regeret mortales spiritus artus
 * Pictoris, Charites supplicuere Jovi:

Non alia pingi dextra, Pater alim, rogamus:
 * Hunc praeter, nulli pingere nos liceat.

Annuit his votis summi regnator Olympi,
 * Et juvenem subito sidera ad alta tulit,

Ut posset melius Charitum simulacra referre
 * Praesens, et nudas cerneret inde Deas

At the same time with Correggio lived the Milanese Andrea del Gobbo, a good painter and very pleasing colourist, many of whose works are to be found dispersed among the houses of his fellow countrymen in Milan, and the surrounding neighbourhood. At the Certosa of Pavia likewise, there is a large painting by this master; the subject is the Ascension of the Virgin, but the death of the artist before he had had