Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/311

Rh who had been the friend of his master, relating to him with many tears the occurrence that had taken place: much search was then made, but with all the diligence that could be used, many days elapsed before anything was brought to light. It was not the will of God, nevertheless, that nature and virtue should be thus aggrieved by the hand of Fortune, and hence it happened that one who had no interest in the matter declared it to be impossible that any but the youth himself could have committed the deed. The Count caused him to be seized accordingly, when being brought to the torture, he did not wait to endure any further martyrdom, but at once confessed his crime. He was then condemned to the gallows, and being first tormented with red hot pincers on his way to execution, was afterwards quartered.

All this was nevertheless insufficient to restore Polidoro to life, nor could it bring back to painting that extraordinary and varied genius which had so long surpassed all that the world had for many ages possessed, in his branch of art. If invention, grace, and force in the delineation of figures, could have been rendered mortal and subject to death, they would have died with him. Happy was the union of nature and art, when a spirit so noble was endued with human form; but alas, for the envy and hatred of cruel Fortune by which he was subjected to so grievous a death; yet though thus she has deprived him of life, never through all time shall envious Fate prevail to rob him of his name and renown. His obsequies were performed with the utmost solemnity, and to the infinite grief of all Messina, in the cathedral church of that city, wdiere he received the rites of sepulture in the year 1543.

Great is the debt of gratitude which is due from the masters of our arts to Polidoro, seeing that by him painting has been enriched with a vast abundance of beautiful and fanciful vestments of all kinds, as well as with a profusion of singular and varied ornaments, not to mention the grace and excellence of which he has left us examples in all his works. To him also is art further indebted for innumerable figures of every kind; animals, buildings, and grottesche that is to say, with landscapes, which are so beautiful, that all who have