Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/353

Rh leaves, observable in works of antiquity, that he was second to no master of his time in that particular. There was not a subterranean building in or about Rome that Morto did not frequent, to study the decorations of this character which might be contained in them; his search after such was incessant, and the vaultings which he examined were innumerable.

This artist remained for many months at Tivoli, where he took up his abode in the Villa Adriana, drawing all the pavements and grottoes therein, whether above the earth or beneath it; and hearing that at Pozzuoli, ten miles from the city of Naples, there were entire walls covered with ancient grottesche, in relief and stucco, as well as painted, which were considered very beautiful, he passed many months at that place also, constantly occupied with the same study. In this he gave himself no remission indeed, until he had copied every thing, even to the smallest relic that he could find in the Campana, which is an ancient road or street in that place filled with antique sepulchral monuments. At Trullo, in like manner, which is near the sea-shore, Morto designed many of the Temples and buildings, those beneath the ground as well as those above. He likewise visited Baia and Mercato di Sabato, both places wherein there are innumerable edifices, now ruined, but presenting examples of such works as were sought by Morto, and all of which he examined and copied with such enduring labour and patient love, that his abilities were largely increased by such devotion, and he profited to a vast extent both in power and knowledge.

Having returned to Rome, Morto laboured there several months, giving his attention entirely to figures, wherein he did not consider himself to be as efficient as he was held by others to be in the execution of arabesque ornaments or grottesche. Stimulated by his desire for improvement, therefore, and hearing the rumours of what Leonardo and Michelagnolo had accomplished for art by the cartoons which they had prepared in Florence, he at once departed for that city: but having seen the works, he became convinced that he could never attain to such a degree of perfection in that branch of art as he had already acquired in his own peculiar vocation, wherefore he again returned to labour at his arabesques or grottesche.

At that time dwelling in Florence and a native of that