Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/329

Rh picture of San Gismondo for the chapel of the Martelli family in the church of San Lorenzo, when Pope Giulio III. being elevated to the papal chair, Vasari was invited to Pome, there to enter the service of his Holiness. Giorgio then thought that he should certainly be able to find the means of reinstating Cristofano in his country, and of restoring him to the favour of the Duke Cosimo; and this he hoped to effect by the intervention of the Cardinal Farnese, who went at that period to spend some time in Florence. But it was found impossible to succeed at that moment, and the poor Cristofano had to remain in his exiled condition until the year 1554, at which time Vasari, being summoned to the service of Duke Cosimo, was thus furnished with an opportunity for procuring the liberation of Cristofano.

And the matter was on this wise. The Bishop of Picasoli, knowing that he should be thereby doing a thing that would be pleasing to his Excellency, resolved to have the three fronts of his palace, which stands beside the bridge of the Carraja, painted in chiaro-scuro, when Messer Sforza Almeni, cup-bearer as well as first and most favoured chamberlain to the Duke, determined that he also would have his house in the Yia de’ Servi painted, and this he did in competition with the Bishop. But not having found a painter to his liking in Florence, he wrote to Giorgio Vasari who had not then returned to that city, desiring him to choose a subject and to send him designs of such pictures as he should judge expedient for the decoration of the façade in question.

Thereupon Giorgio, who had known Almeni in former times, and was indeed his intimate friend, they having been together in the service of the Duke Alessandro,—Giorgio, I say, arranged the whole matter in accordance with the extent of surface presented by the façade, and sent Messer Sforza a design of most beautiful invention.

According to