Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/274

266 situate at about twenty-five miles from Udine, and being endowed by nature with a fine genius and decided inclination for painting, he set himself, without any other teacher, to the study of natural objects, imitating the manner of Giorgione da Castel Franco, with which, as exhibited in the many works of that master which he had seen in Venice, he had been greatly pleased. Having thus acquired the first principles of his art, he was compelled to leave his native place, as the only means of saving his life from the attacks of a deadly pestilence, which was then raging at Pordenone; he thus passed several months in the neighbouring country, employed by the different residents around, to execute various works in fresco, and making his first experiments in mural paintings at their expense.

It thus happened that our artist obtained great skill and facility in that branch of art, seeing that the best mode of learning is by frequent and sufficient practice, which he thereby secured. He furthermore acquired the power of so managing the colours, that when working with the materials in a very fluent state (which is done on account of the white, whereby the plaster or intonaco is so rapidly dried, that it otherwise causes a glare, by which all softness is destroyed), they are yet made to produce the desired effect. Having by these labours secured a knowledge of the nature of colours, and by the extent of his practice attained to great skill in works of fresco, our artist returned to Udine, where he painted a picture in oil for the altar of the Nunziata in the Church of San Pietro the Martyr, showing Our Lady at the moment when she is receiving the Salutation of the Angel Gabriel; in the heavens above is a figure representing God the Father surrounded by numerous angels in the form of