Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/338

330 of his own times, who was then at the head of the government in Bologna, found much amusement in the singularities of this artist, as did the whole city of Bologna. Many persons are nevertheless of opinion that this madness of his was mingled with a certain amount of craft and cunning. He once, while half crazed, and in very great need, sold some of his goods at a very low price, but after a time, and when he had somewhat recovered himself, he demanded to have them restored to him, and did accordingly obtain the restitution of the same, under certain conditions, having sold them, as he averred, while in a state of complete insanity; whereas the case may have been totally different. Not that I will affirm it to have been thus; but what I may say is, that I have many times heard it related in that wise.

Amico gave a certain portion of his time to sculpture, and executed, as he best might, a group in marble, for the church of San Petronio. The subject of this work is the Dead Christ supported by Nicodemus, and Amico treated it in the manner which he had adopted for his paintings. This artist was in the habit of painting with both hands at the same time, holding the pencil with the lighter tints in one hand, and that with the darker colours in the other, but the best of all, and what was more laughable than any thing else, was the fact that he would bind a leather girdle round his waist, and would have this hung about with little pots filled with colours prepared for use, in such sort that he looked like the Devil of San Macario, with all those bottles of his; and when he was thus working, with his spectacles on his nose, he was a figure that might have made the very stones laugh, more particularly when he began to chatter, for Amico would gabble enough for twenty men, and as he said the strangest things in the world, his manner of proceeding was a perpetual jest. It is true that he never spoke well of any one, however distinguished by excellence and ability, or however well endowed, whether by nature or the gifts of fortune. His best delight was, as we have said, in babbling and gossip. One evening, about the time of the Ave Maria, Amico met another painter of Bologna who had been buying cabbages in the market, and whom he kept listening to his stories and talk of various kinds beneath the loggia^ of the Podesta until the night was almost spent, the poor man not being