Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/454

446 church newly built by the Duke of Mantua near the Castello; the subject of this wrork is the Martyrdom by decapitation of Santa Barbara, which is executed with much care and good judgment. The cause whereby the Duke wras moved to give that picture to Domenico was this, a painting had been executed by that artist long before in the Chapel of Santa Margherita, which is in the Cathedral of Mantua, and the manner of that work, which Domenico had painted in competition vTitli Paulino, who painted the chapel of Sant’ Antonio, with Paolo Farinato, who decorated that of San Martino, and with Battista del Moro, to whom had been confided the Chapel of Santa Maddalena;—the manner of Domenico, I say, pleased the Duke very greatly, and the Santa Barbara was entrusted to him as the consequence of that Signor’s approval.

Now all these four Veronese had been invited to Mantua by the Cardinal Ercole, who proposed that they should decorate that church which he had had restored with the designs, and in part also under the direction, of Griulio Romano. Other works have been performed by Domenico, in Verona, Vicenza, and Venice, but it shall suffice me to have mentioned the above. He is an upright man and an excellent artist, well versed, not in painting only, but in music also; Domenico is indeed an accomplished musician, and among the most distinguished members of the truly noble Academy of the Philharmonists in Verona.

Nor will Felice, son of the aoove-named Domenico, be found inferior to his father; although still young he has already proved himself a more than ordinary painter in a picture which he has painted for the church of the Trinità; the subject of this work is the Madonna, with six other Saints, all of the size of life. And this success of Felice need not occasion surprise, that youth having studied his art in Florence, dwelling in the house of Bernardo Canigiani, a Florentine gentleman and a gossip of his father.

In the same city of Verona there is also still living the painter Bernardino, called India, who, to say nothing of many other works, has depicted the Fable of Psyche in most