Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/34

26 which is painted in colours to imitate bronze, and where Giulio depicted figures of the Countess Matilda, King Pepin, Charlemagne, Godfrey de Bouillon, King of Jerusalem, and other benefactors of the church; these are all works of great merit, and no long time since there were published engravings of parts thereof, executed after a design made by Giulio himself. He also depicted the larger portion of the stories in fresco which adorn the loggia of Agostino Chigi, and worked much upon a most beautiful picture in oil of Sant’ Elizabetta, which Raphael had prepared for the purpose of sending the same to Francis King of France; with another picture of Santa Margareta, which was almost entirely painted by Giulio Romano, after the design of Raphael, who sent a portrait of the Vice-Queen of Naples to the same monarch, whereof he had but taken the likeness of the head from the life, all the rest being executed by Giulio. These pictures, which were exceedingly welcome to that sovereign, are still in France, at Fontainebleau that is to say, in the chapel of the king.

Proceeding thus in the service of Raphael his master, and acquiring a knowledge of the most intricate difficulties of his art, which were taught to him by Raphael with the utmost affection and solicitude, Giulio soon became well able to draw perfectly in perspective, to measure edifices and take plans of buildings, Raphael frequently designing and sketching certain inventions, after his own fashion, which he would then leave to Giulio, to the end that the latter might complete them on an enlarged scale, and with the exact measurement and proportions, so that they could afterwards be used by the master in his architectural undertakings. In these last-mentioned labours more particularly, Giulio Romano soon began to take great delight, and devoted his attention thereto in such sort, that, when at a later period he exercised the vocation of the architect, he proved himself to be a very excellent master. After Raphael’s death, therefore, and when Giulio and Giovan-Francesco, called Il Fattore, being left his