Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/366

358 prove that he was born, so to speak, with the pencil in his hand. But while his uncles encouraged and incited him on the one hand, they were nevertheless compelled sometimes to interrupt his studies and restrain him on the other, fearing lest he should injure his health by too close an application to the art. At length, and when he had attained his sixteenth year namely, after having already effected wonders in design, he painted a picture entirely of his own invention and composition, representing the Baptism of our Saviour Christ by San Giovanni, and executed in so fine a manner, that notwithstanding what he had previously done, yet all who beheld it were struck with astonishment at seeing such a work produced by a boy. This picture was placed in the Nunziata at Parma, where the Monks of the Zoccoli have their abode. Not content with this, Francesco determined also to try his skill in fresco, whereupon he painted a Chapel in San Giovanni Evangelista, which belongs to the Black Friars of San Benedetto, and succeeded so well in that kind of decoration, that he ultimately painted seven Chapels for the same confraternity.

About that time Pope Leo X. sent the Signor Prospero Colonna with an army to Parma, when the uncles of Francesco, fearing lest he might be induced to waste his time, or be led away from the study of his art, sent him forth in company with his cousin Girolamo Mazzuoli, a boy like himself, and also a painter, despatching them both to Viandana, a place in the territories of the Duke of Mantua, where they remained during all the time that the war continued. There Francesco painted two pictures in tempera, one representing St. Francis receiving the Stigmata, which was placed in the Church belonging to the Barefooted Friars; the other, a Marriage of St. Catherine, with a large number