Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/456

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But that which surpassed all the other works of this artist, which were, nevertheless, divinely beautiful, w^as a leaf on which he had depicted in miniature the Terrestrial Paradise, with Adam and Eve driven forth by the Angel, who is following them with the sword in his hand: not to be enumerated or described are the numbers, beauty, and variety of the trees, fruits, flowers, animals, birds, and other objects, which are represented in this work, a stupendous production, which was executed by command of Don Giorgio Cacciamale of Bergamo, then Prior of San Giorgio in Verona, and who paid Girolamo sixty crowns of gold for the same, conferring on him many favours and marks of courtesy in addition. This work was afterwards presented by the above-named father, Don Giorgio, to a Cardinal in Pome, who was then Protector of that Order. He showed it to many nobles in Rome, when it was declared to be the most perfect example of miniature painting ever seen up to that time.

Girolamo painted flowers with so much care, he made them so true, so beautiful, and so natural, that they appeared to the spectator to be real; he would likewise imitate small cameos, or other engraved jewels and precious stones, in such a manner that nothing could possibly be more exaetly similar. Among his figures are some, as in his imitations of cameos and other precious stones, which are not larger than a small ant, and of which one can, nevertheless, distinguish all the limbs, nay, all the museles, so clearly, that the effect could not well be believed by one who had not seen it. In his last years Girolamo was accustomed to declare that he then understood his art better than he had ever done, and knew where to look for all he w^anted, but that when he attempted to take up the pencils they all turned the wrong way, and neither eye nor hand would serve him any longer. This artist died at the age of eighty-three, and on the second day of July, in the year 1555; he was buried at San Nazzarro, in the burial-place of the Brotherhood of San Biagio.

This master was a good and upright man, one who never had contention or strife with any one, and led a very innocent life: among other children he had a son named Francesco,