Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/386

378 or whether it was conferred by the Duke of his own accord. For although the magnitude of the work may have given him pause, or even perhaps alarmed him to a certain degree, he being then somewhat advanced in years, yet he perceived, on the other hand, how ample a field the importance of that undertaking would present to him, for giving evidence of the power and ability wherewith he was endowed, and was proportionately content with his appointment. It has been affirmed by some, that when Jacopo found himself commissioned to undertake this charge, he was heard to declare that he would show the world how a man should draw and paint, and work in fresco too; adding, moreover, that all the other artists were only such as one can pick up by the dozen, with other expressions of similar import, all most offensively insolent; and this, notwithstanding that Francesco Salviati, a painter of great name, was then in Florence, and had most happily completed the pictures in that hall of the palace wherein was formerly the audience chamber of the Signoria. But I, who know Puntormo to have always been a man of the utmost modesty, one who ever spoke honourably and respectfully of every one, and conducted himself towards all as became a well-intentioned and virtuous artist, which he truly was; I am persuaded that these words were attributed to him falsely; nor can I believe that such vauntings were ever suffered to proceed from his lips, seeing that they are rarely heard from any but vain, presumptuous men, who think a great deal too much of themselves; a sort of persons who have little for the most part, either of goodness, ability, or fair breeding.

Now I might have been silent respecting all these things, but Ihave not thought it desirable to be so; on the contrary, it appears to me that to relate these facts as I have done, is the duty of a faithful and veracious writer. With respect to these rumours, however, I am, for my own part, most fully convinced that although such discourses were spoken of— more especially among those of our vocation—they were the mere inventions of malignant persons, Jacopo having ever proved himself, in all the actions of his life, to be equally modest as regarded himself, and upright as concerned others.