Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/310

302 sented as following the Saviour to his death; Soldiers, Pharisees, Horses, Women, and Children, form this throng: the Thieves being led to their punishment in the front of all. In this work Polidoro kept constantly before his eyes the consideration of how such an execution should be depicted, and seems to have exerted all the powers of his nature for the purpose of worthily accomplishing this work, which is indeed a most excellent one: having completed it, his every thought was turned to the means of freeing himself from that country, although he had been well received there, and was indeed detained for some time by a lady to whom he had long been attached, and whose sweet words and flatteries availed for a certain period to delay his departure. His earnest desire to see Rome once again, and to rejoin the friends whom he had left there, did nevertheless prevail; and having taken from the bank a good sum of money which he had there deposited, he prepared to set forth on his way.

Polidoro had for some time retained an assistant who was a native of Sicily, and had more affection for the moneys of his master than for his person, but this gold having been kept in the bank, as we have said, he could never find an opportunity to lay his hands on it and carry it off; the cruel and wicked thought of how he might best accomplish that object possessed his mind nevertheless, he consequently resolved to call in the aid of certain companions of his own, and, murdering Polidoro while he slept, then to divide with them the sum of money which he coveted. On the following night therefore, while Polidoro wms in his first sleep and slumbered deeply, they assailed him accordingly, and strangled him with a cloth, after which, giving him numerous wounds, they accomplished his death. They then carried him to the door of the lady whom he had loved, hoping thus to turn suspicion from themselves and to cause the belief that he had been assassinated by her kindred, or other persons belonging to the house. The greater part of the gold thus acquired was given by the wicked youth to those wretches who had assisted him to commit so cruel an outrage, and having bidden them depart, he repaired in the morning to the abode of a certain Count,