Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/41

Rh so life-like that the picture is always called the painting of the Cat. In another picture, which was of large size, our artist depicted Christ bound to the column and scourged; this was placed on the altar of the church of Santa Prassedia, at Rome. No long time after the completion of this work, Messer Giovan Matteo Giberti, who was at that time Datary to Pope Clement, and afterwards became bishop of Verona, caused Giulio, who was his frequent associate and intimate friend, to prepare a design for certain apartments which were built of brick, in the immediate vicinity of the papal palace: they looked on the Piazza di San Pietro, being intended for the reception of the trumpeters, who sound the trumpets while the cardinals are proceeding to the concistory, and are furnished with a very commodious means of ascent, a stair namely, which could be mounted on horseback as well as on foot.

For the same Messer Giovan Matteo, Giulio likewise painted a picture of the Stoning of St. Stephen; this work Messer Giovan Matteo sent to a benefice which he had at Genoa, and which was called St. Stephen. The invention and composition of this painting are alike beautiful and graceful, the young man Saul is seen seated by the garments, while the Jews are engaged in the martyrdom of the saint. Giulio Romano never executed a more admirable painting than this, the fierce attitudes and expression of the persecutors are rendered equally well with the patience of the martyr, whose look, which is turned upward, is such, that he truly appears to see the Saviour Christ seated at the right hand of the Father, in a Heaven which is indeed most divinely painted. This picture, with the benefice to which it was sent, Messer Giovan Matteo presented to the monks of Monte Oliveto, who have turned the latter into a monastery.