Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/327

Rh of Sant’ Agostino by commission from Galeotto da Girone, sent for Cristofano, who repaired to him most willingly, he having a great wish to see Rome. And here Doceno remained many months, doing very little indeed but seeing the city, yet he acquired a great increase of knowledge during that time, insomuch that when he had once more returned to San Justino, he painted certain figures of his own invention in one of the halls there, which were so beautiful that he might have been supposed to have studied them for twenty years.

It then happened that in the year 1545, Vasari was summoned to Naples, where he was commissioned to construct a refectory for the monks of Monte Oliveto, and this was to be a work of much greater importance than that of San Michele-in-Bosco at Bologna; he therefore sent for Cristofano, Raffaello dal Coller and Stefano, his friends and scholars before mentioned, all meeting at the appointed time i'n Naples accordingly, with the exception of Cristofano, who had remained behind because he was sick. Nevertheless, being much urged by Vasari, Doceno did get as far as Rome on his way to Naples, but was there detained by Borgognone his brother, who was like himself an exile, and who would very fain have taken him into France, there to make him enter the service of the Colonel, Giovanni da Turrino.

Cristofano’s opportunity for going to Naples was therefore lost, but Vasari having returned to Rome in the year 1546, with a commission to execute twenty-four pictures, which were then sent to Naples and placed in the Sacristy of San Giovanni Carbonaro, as also to paint the doors for the organ of the Piscopio, which were six braccia high,—Vasari I say, then availed himself of Cristofano’s services, which were of the utmost value to him, since he executed both figures and landscapes in these works, after a manner which was most excellent. The subjects of the twenty-four pictures were chosen from the Old Testament and from the life of San Giovanni Battista, the figures are about one braccio and a half high. Giorgio had in like manner designed to employ