Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/379

Rh cesco found an end to the troubles of this world, which had never been known to him but as a place full of cares and pains. It had been his wish to receive burial in that Church of the Servite Monks which is called the Fontana, and is situate at about a mile from Casal Maggiore; he was there interred accordingly, naked, as had also been his own desire, and with a cross of cypress placed upright on his breast in the grave. It was on August 24, in the year 1540, that this master finished the course of his life, which he did greatly to the loss of our Art, seeing that his hand imparted a singular grace and beauty to all the paintings produced by him.

Francesco took great pleasure in playing on the lute, and had so much genius, with so delicate a taste for the same, that he was no less excellent in this art than in that of painting. But as respects the last, it is most certain that if he had not been capricious in his labours, and could have prevailed on himself to lay aside the follies of the alchemists, he would have been one of the most distinguished and most admirable painters of our time. Now, I will not deny, that it may be sometimes good to work only when the inspiration seizes, and when the artist feels most inclined to do so; but what I do censure is, the working very little, or perhaps not at all, and the waste of time in useless cogitations. He who deceives himself, and persists in attempting what he cannot effect, often finds that he has lost what he does know and possess, in seeking to- acquire that which he never can attain. If Francesco, who had been endowed by Nature with a most animated genius and a manner of the utmost grace and beauty, had continued the daily practice of his art, he would without doubt have made such progress, that, as we now admire the pleasing expression and grace which he imparted to his heads, so we should in that case have seen him giving evidence, in the perfection of his design, the excellence of his manner, and the beauty of the whole work, that he had far surpassed his earlier self as well as others.