Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/320

312 to ensure perfection; Stefano on the contrary, was somewhat deficient in the requisite force and grace, the first strokes of his pencil rarely sufficing to place the object depicted in its due position, but as he was very patient, he did finally succeed in completing his grottesche, although not without increased labour, yet with superior delicacy and neatness. These two artists, therefore, executing this frieze in company, laboured so earnestly, both the one and the other, that Cristofano learned to finish from Stefano, while Stefano learned from Cristofano to be more firm of hand, and to work in a more masterly fashion.

The artists next commenced the large festoons or garlands which were to be carried in thick masses around the windows; and of these Vasari executed one with his own hand, the various fruits being placed before him, that he might copy from nature. Having done that, he commanded that Cristofano and Stefano, pursuing the same method, should complete the remainder, one on one side and one on the other of each window, to the end that all might be finished, one after the other; Giorgio, meanwhile promising that to him who should have acquitted himself best at the end of the works, he would give a pair of nether hose of a scarlet colour: wherefore amicably and even affectionately competing for the honour and the profit, these two young men set themselves to draw the most minute as well as the most important objects from nature, millet-seed, bunches of fennel, and the like, in such sort that these garlands turned out to be a most beautiful work, and both Doceno and Stefano received from Vasari the prize of the scarlet hose.

Vasari took great pains to prevail on Cristofano to design a part of the stories which were to go into the frieze with his own hand, but the latter would never attempt it; wherefore, while Giorgio was preparing them himself, Doceno executed the buildings required in two of the pictures, with so much grace and so fine a manner, to such entire perfection, in short, that there are few masters, of however good a judgment, and even though they had the cartoons before them, who could have done as much. It is indeed a certain truth that no painter ever performed so much on the impulse of the moment, and without previous study or preparation, as was effected by Cristofano.