Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/445

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Giovan-Maria likewise designed all the sculptures which were discovered at that time, insomuch that, after twelve years thus expended, he returned to his native place rich in all the treasures of that art. Nor did he content himself with such things as were to be found in Rome itself, but designed everything that was good or beautiful in all the Campagna of Rome, nay, even to the kingdom of Naples were his researches extended on the one hand, while they were carried to the Duchy of Spoleto on the other, and to many parts besides. Giovan-Maria was meanwhile very l^oor, and had not the means of living, or of supporting himself in Rome; wherefore, they say, that it was his custom to employ two or three days of each week in helping at some one or other of the works in painting which were then in progress, and by means of what he thus gained, the masters being then well paid and the necessaries for living cheap, he contrived to exist on the other days of the week, and so pursue his studies in architecture. He thus designed and copied all these antiquities, completing thenf as though he had found them entire, restoring them to perfection in his drawings that is to say, being enabled to furnish the parts wanting, with the utmost truth and in all their integrity, by means of the information supplied to him by such portions and members as were found still remaining in their places; all which he did with such care and exactitude in the measurements, and with such perfect justice of proportion, that he avoided all liability to errors, nor did he commit such, in any part whatever.

Having returned to Verona, Giovan-Maria could find no opportunity for the exercise of his acquirements in architecture, his native land being involved, by a change of the government, in sore trouble and confusion; he therefore gave his attention for the time to painting, and executed numerous works. Over the house of the Torre family, for example, he painted a large escutcheon of arms with certain trophies added thereto; and for two German nobles, counsellors of the Emperor Maximilian, he painted one side of the small church of San Giorgio, in fresco, the subjects being taken from Scripture. He depicted the portraits of these two nobles likewise thereon, both of the size of life and