Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/162

154 imposed on him. But having attained the age of forty-seven years, he died of fever, in the year 1541. The death of Lorenzetto caused much grief to his friends, who had ever found him kindly to others and diffident of himself. He had, moreover, always lived the life of an upright and good man; wherefore, at his death, the Deputati of San Pietro gave him honourable sepulture in one of their vaults, and inscribed on his place of rest the following words:—

Boccaccino of Cremona lived at about the same time with Lorenzo, and had acquired the reputation of being an excellent painter, not in his native city only, but through all Lombardy, where his pictures were highly extolled. Proceeding to Rome, for the purpose of beholding the works so much renowned of Michelagnolo, Boccaccino had no sooner cast eyes on them, than he began to do his utmost to depreciate their value, considering that he exalted himself in •proportion to the censure which he thus bestowed on a man who was most excellent, not only in design, but in almost every other department of art. But when Boccaccino himself, being commissioned to paint the chapel of Santa Maria Traspontina, had completed his work, and presented it to view, he opened the eyes of all who, having expected to see him soar above the heavens, found that he was not able to attain even to the last floor of the houses. He had represented the Coronation of Our Lady, whom he had depicted with Children flying around her; but when the painters of Rome saw what he had accomplished in this work, their anticipated admiration was changed into derision.

From this we may perceive, that when the popular voice exalts a man who is more excellent in name than in deed, it is a difficult thing to reduce such a person to his true place by mere words, however just and reasonable; nor until his vorks themselves are found to prove him wholly different