Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/341

Rh tures besides were likewise painted in the same vaulting by Doceno, two of these being opposite to the oval with the Espousals, and the third, which is a very large one, in the same line therewith; in that last named is seen the goddess Juno in her chariot drawn by Peacocks, and in those on each side are, in the one the goddess of Force, and in the other Abundance with the Cornucopia at her feet. Beneath these pictures, on the surface of the walls that is to say, are two other stories from the life of Juno, these are placed over two doors, and the subject of the one is the Goddess, changing Io, the daughter of Inachus, into a cow; that of the others, the same deity changing Calisto into a bear.

While these works were in process of execution, his Excellency, perceiving the unwearied diligence of Cristofano and his extraordinary zeal for the work, took a great liking to him; scarcely had the first grey light of dawn appeared, before Cristofano was at his labour, in which he took such extreme delight, and so entirely did he devote all his thought and care thereto, that he would sometimes set off without waiting to finish dressing himself. And it would not only occasionally but even frequently happen that in his haste he would put on a pair of shoes (he keeping all that he possessed under his bed) that were not fellows; his cloak too was for the most part put on the wrong side out, so that the cape was turned in. One morning among others that he was going to his work thus accoutred, it chanced that the Signor Duke with the Signora Duchess were about to set forth for the chase, and standing to look at the paintings, while the ladies and others were getting themselves into order, they perceived Cristofano with his mantle as usual wrong side out, and the cape or hood turned in, whereupon both laughing, the Duke said, “Cristofano, how does it chance that your cloak is so often wrong side out?” to which Cristofano replied, “I don’t know how it happens, Signor, but I must needs see to getting myself a kind of cloak that shall be alike on both sides, and have neither right nor wrong, for I have not patience to endure this sort of cloak, seeing that when I dress myself and leave the house in the morning it is for the most part dark, besides that one of my eyes has been so much weakened that I can see nothing at all with it. But let your Excellency look at what I am painting, and not at what I am wearing.”