Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/457

Rh who acquired the art of miniature painting from himself, and performed such marvels therein while still but a child, that Girolamo declared he could not himself have done so much at that age as was accomplished by his son. But the youth was led away from his studies by an uncle, the brother of his mother, who, being a somewhat wealthy man and not having children, took his nephew to his home in Vicenza, where he set him to take charge of a furnace for glass-making, which belonged to himself. When Francesco had spent his best years at this, the wife of his uncle died, the latter thereupon took another wife, and had children of his own; the hopes of Francesco were thus destroyed, and he found that he had lost his time as well as the prospect which he previously had of being his uncle’s heir.

Having then returned, after an absence of six years, to his early art, and having made some progress in the acquirement of the same, he began to work. Among other things he constructed a large globe of wood, hollow within, and being four feet in diameter; this he then covered externally with a strong glue, so that there should be no danger of cracks or other injury. Now, the globe or ball thus constructed was to serve as a terrestrial globe, wherefore, when it had been carefully divided and exactly measured under the direction and in the presence of Fracastoro and Beroldi, both well versed in physics, and distinguished as cosmographers and astrologers, it was afterwards to be painted by Francesco for the Venetian gentleman, Messer Andrea Navagero, a most learned orator and poet, who intended to make a present of the same to the King Francis of France, to whom he was about to be sent as ambassador from the Republic. But scarcely had Navagero arrived in France and entered on his office, when he died: the work consequently remained unfinished, which was much to be regretted, since, executed by Francesco, under the guidance and with the advice and assistance of two men so distinguished as were Fracastoro and Baroldi, it would doubtless have turned out a very remarkable production. It remained unfinished, however, as I have said, and what is worse, even that which had been done received considerable injury, I know not of what kind, in the absence of Francesco: yet, spoiled as it was, the globe was purchased by Messer Bartolommeo Lonichi, who