Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/503

Rh 1481, to Piero Tisi, whose forefathers had by their origin been Paduans. He had received from nature so powerful an inclination to the art of painting, that when but a little child and while still at the school, whither he was sent that he might learn to read, he would do nothing but draw, an occupation from which his father, who considered painting a mere idleness, vainly endeavoured to deter the boy, for he found that to do so was impossible. At length the father perceived that he would do better to second the impulse of nature in this his son, who did nothing but draw night and day; and finally therefore, he resolved to place him with Domenico Laneto, who was then a painter of very fair repute in Ferrara, although his manner was somewhat dry and laboured.

With this artist Benvenuto had remained for some time, when, having gone on a certain occasion to Cremona, he there saw the paintings in the principal chapel of the cathedral; now among others from the hand of Boccaccino Boccacci, a Cremonese painter, by whom the whole apsis had been painted in fresco, was a figure of Our Saviour Christ, who, seated on his throne and with two Saints on each side, is represented in the act of bestowing his benediction; and being greatly pleased with that work, Benvenuto fixed himself, by the intervention of some friends, with Boccaccino, who was at that time still occupied in the same church, with stories in fresco from the life of the Madonna, of which we have already spoken in his Life: these works he executed in competition with the painter Altobello, who was employed