Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/181

Rh in distillation, proposing to administer an enema to the end that he, the said Mercury, might he delivered from peccant humours. A ridiculous and fantastic delineation, but a singular idea, and very well executed.

Baldassare, who always proved himself courteous, modest, and friendly to all, was very intimate with the excellent Sienese painter, Domenico Beccafumi, as he also was with Capanna, who executed many paintings in Siena; among them the façade of the Turchi, and that of another building on the Piazza.

The Florentine painter, Giovanni Francesco Penni, surnamed Il Fattore, was indebted to fortune no less than to the excellence of his own dispositions, seeing that Raffaello da Urbino, attracted by his good conduct, his love for painting, and other estimable qualities, received him into his house, and brought him up together with Giulio Romano, treating them always as he would have done had they been his sons. Nay, so dearly did he hold both these disciples, that he proved his affection to them at his death, by leaving them heirs to his art and property alike.

Giovanni Francesco having begun from a boy, and when he first went into the house of Raphael, to be called Il Fattore, retained that name ever after. He imitated the manner of his master in drawing, and constantly remained faithful to that manner, as may be seen by certain of his designs which we have in our book: nor is it to be wondered at, if we find vast numbers of these, since Giovan Francesco took more pleasure in drawing than in painting, and all his designs are finished with extraordinary care.