Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/340

332 great length of time, but repaired to Eome, where he painted manj great personages from the life, the Pope, Paul III. among others. But finding that to be a country which would not do for him, and one wherein he could have but slight hope of acquiring honour, profit, or reputation among all the most noble artists labouring there, Girolamo departed to Naples, where he found some friends who favoured him to the utmost of their power. Among these w^as Messer Tommaso Cambi, a Florentine merchant, who was a zealous lover of paintings and antiquities in marble, by whom he was more particularly assisted, and who supplied him with all things whereof he had need.

Having, then, set himself to work, Girolamo painted a picture in oil for the chapel of a certain Messer Antonello, bishop of I know not what place, the subject chosen being the Adoration of the Magi. He also painted another picture, likewise in oil, for the Church of Sant’ Aniello, and in this he depicted Our Lady, San Paolo, and San Giovanni Battista: many portraits of the nobles were also taken from the life by our artist in that city. Being somewhat advanced in years, Girolamo lived sparingly, and endeavoured to lay by money, but after no great lapse of time, on finding that he had nothing more to do in Naples, he returned to Rome.

Here certain acquaintances of his, having heard that he had saved a few crowns, persuaded him that, for the better regulation of his life, he would do well to marry, whereupon, believing that he should improve his condition, as they said, he suffered himself to be prevailed on by those men, who for their own convenience then imposed on him a wretched prostitute previously entertained by themselves. But soon discovering his misfortune, the popr man w^as so overwhelmed with grief, that in a few weeks he died thereof, being then in his sixty-ninth year.

And now to say somewhat of Innocenzio da Imolo. This artist was many years in Florence with Mariotto Albertinelli, and having subsequently returned to Imola, he there