Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/437

Rh that work, he sank into so strange a state, that he would work no more, and his peculiarities increasing, he became utterly distracted, and died more like the beasts that perish than like a Christian man. At the same time, in the same city, lived the Milanese, Bernardino da Trevio, who was engineer and architect of the Duomo, he was admirable in design and was held by Leonardo da Vinci to be a most excellent master, although his manner is somewhat crude and his paintings are hard and dry. At the upper end of the cloister of Santa Maria delle Grazie, there is an Ascension of Christ by Bernardino da Trevio, wherein the observer will remark some very admirable foreshortenings. In San Francesco also, he painted a chapel in fresco, the subject being the death of San Pietro and that of San Paolo. In Milan and the neighbourhood of that city, there are likewise many other works by this master, all held in high estimation, and in my book of drawings I have a female head by his hand, very beautifully executed in charcoal and white lead, from which a very fair notion of his manner may be obtained. But to return to Bramante. After having thoroughly studied that fabric (the Duomo), and made the acquaintance of the above-named engineers, he became inspirited to such a degree, that he resolved to devote himself entirely to