Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/491

Rh time to prepare decorations of similar kind, almost every year, for the dramas performed during the Carnival, having obtained so much facility from his extensive practice, to say nothing of his natural endowments, that he had intended at one time to write on the subject, and to teach others. But this undertaking he afterwards abandoned, partly because he found it more difficult of accomplishment than he had expected, but partly also because the preparation of such works was afterwards committed, by those who, at a later period, held the government of the palace, to Bronzino and Francesco Salviati, as will be related in due course.

Finding himself therefore to be left for some time without employment, Aristotile departed from the city of Florence, and repaired to Borne, there to seek his cousin Antonio da San Gallo; and after having been received very gladly, and treated in the most friendly manner by Antonio, Aristotile was employed by that master to superintend certain buildings then in progress, with a stipend of ten crowns per month; he was afterwards sent to Castro, where he remained several months, having received a commission from Pope Paul III. to superintend the erection of a large part of the walls of that place, after the design and under the directions of Antonio.

But Aristotile, having been brought up with Antonio from a child, and having accustomed himself to treat him familiarly, was now held at a distance, as it is reported, by his cousin, because he would never adopt the habit of saying “you” to Antonio, but constantly addressed him as “thou,” even though it were in the presence of the Pope himself— to say nothing of a circle of nobles and gentlemen, after the manner still practised by Florentines accustomed to the ancient fashions, who give the “thou ” to every one as though they came out of Norica, they not being able to accommodate themselves to the modern modes of address, as do those who gradually adopt the usages which they see practised around them: but how strange this must have appeared to Antonio, accustomed as he was to be honoured by Cardinals and other great men, let every one judge for himself. His stay at Castro thus became irksome to Aristotile, and he begged Antonio to arrange for his being sent back to Rome; with this request Antonio complied will-