Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/453

Rh should be executed: the buttresses have therefore been all completed, and a commencement has been already made in the vaulting of the cupola, so that the work of Ventura will be brought to a conclusion with improved proportions, increased grandeur, and in a richer manner. But of a truth, Ventura well deserves to be had in remembrance, seeing that this work is the most remarkable production of modern times to be found in the city of Pistoja.

In the vicinity of Prato, which is at the distance of some ten miles from the city of Florence, and at a village called Savignano, was born Bartolommeo, according to the Tuscan practice called Baccio. From his childhood, Bartolommeo evinced not only a great inclination but an extraordinary aptitude for the study of design, and by the intervention of Benedetto da Maiano, he was placed under the discipline of Cosimo Roselli, being taken into the house of certain of his kinsfolk who dwelt near the gate of San Piero Gattolini, where Bartolommeo also dwelt many years, for which reason he was always called Baccio della Porta, nor was he known by any other name. After Baccio had left Cosimo Roselli, he began to study the works of Leonardo da Vinci with the most devoted zeal, and in a short time had made so great a progress that he was early considered one of the mosi distinguished of the younger painters, whether as regarded design or colouring. In the company of Baccio lived Mariotto Albertinelli, who in a short time acquired his manner to a very satisfactory degree, when they executed together numerous pictures of the Madonna, which are dispersed throughout Florence. To