Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/433

Rh the monks of San Benedetto possess in the Mantuan territory, is by this master, and he painted the Altar of the Rosary in the church of San Domenico: for the convent of Sant’ Anastasia in Verona also, he painted a Madonna in fresco, with the Bishop San Remigio, and Sant’ Anastasia. In a small arch over the second door of the inner cloister is another figure of Our Lady, painted by the hand of this artist, with San Domenico and San Tommaso d’ Aquino, all very ably executed.

Fra Girolamo was a man of the utmost simplicity of character, and was totally regardless of worldly affairs. To avoid noise and disturbance he dwelt for the most part at a farm belonging to the Brotherhood, and such money as was sent to him for his works, and which he used for the purchase of colours or other materials, it was his custom to keep in a basket without a cover which was hung up to the ceiling in the midst of his chamber, that all who might require to use it might take therefrom; and that he might not have the trouble of taking thought each day for what he was to eat. Fra Girolamo would boil a good kettle of beans every Monday, which then served him for the whole week.

When the plague broke out in Mantua, and the sick were abandoned by all but himself, as happens in such cases. Fra Girolamo, moved by the deepest compassion, would never consent to leave the poor infected fathers; nay, he continued to attend upon and serve them with his own hands. Thus, not regarding the loss of his life for the love of God, he caught the malady while engaged in that work of charity, and died, to the great regret of all who had known him, in the sixtieth year of his age.

But to return to Francesco Monsignore: this artist took the portrait, which I had forgot to mention above, of Count Ercole Giusti of Verona. This is of the size of life, the dress is a robe of cloth of gold, which it was the habit of