Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/458

450 has never been prevailed on to give it up, although he has been frequently much entreated to do so, and offered large sums of money for it.

Francesco had made two smaller globes before commencing this large one; and of these one is now in the possession of Mazzanti, Archdeacon of the Cathedral of Verona; the other belonged to the Count Raimondo della Torre, and is now the property of his son, the Count Giovanni Battista, by whom it is very greatly valued, seeing that this also was constructed with the assistance and after the measurements of Fracas tor0, who was a very intimate friend of the Count Raimondo.

Finally, becoming weary of the excessive labour demanded by works in miniature, Francesco devoted himself to painting and architecture, in which he became a very able artist, and executed numerous works in Venice and Padua. Now, at that time there came into Italy a rich and noble Fleming, the Bishop of Tournay, whose object was the cultivation of letters, an examination of the country, and the acquirement of knowledge relating to its manners and customs. Finding himself in Padua, therefore, and having much pleasure in architecture, he resolved, as being more particularly pleased with the Italian method of building, to transplant our modes of architecture into his own country. And to do this the more effectually, the Bishop, knowing the ability of Francesco, attached the latter to himself by a very honourable stipend, proposing to take the artist with him into Flanders, where he had determined to execute many works of importance. But when the time for departure was come, Francesco, who had already prepared designs, copied from the best and most renowned of the Italian edifices,—the poor Francesco, I say, fell sick and died, while still in his youth, and the object of many hopes; he died, leaving his patron in much grief for the loss which his death had occasioned.

Francesco left an only brother, in whom, he being a priest, the family Dai Libri became extinct, in which family there had been three men consecutively all highly excellent in their peculiar branch of art. Nor are there any disciples left to them by whom the same may be maintained in life, if we except the above-mentioned Don Clovio, who acquired his art, as we have said, from Girolamo, when the latter was