Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/515

Rh the church of San Sepolcro, a work that may be truly called divine.

Now it may be considered certain, that he who takes great pleasure in the manner of some particular master, and studies that manner with love and zeal, will at least acquire some tincture of the same, and give evidence thereof in parts, if not in the whole of his own works; it has, indeed, sometimes happened, that the scholar has become more distinguished than his master: but with respect to Girolamo we have principally to remark, that he approached the manner of Correggio in certain parts, and when he had returned to Bologna he constantly endeavoured to imitate his works, studying none other but those, and the pictures by the hand of Raffaello da Urbino, which, as we have before related, the men of that city have in their possession. All these particulars I obtained from Girolamo himself, whom I knew well in Rome, seeing him there frequently during the year 1550, when he often lamented with me that he should have consumed his youth and the best of his years in Ferrara and Bologna, instead of passing them in Rome or some other place, wherein he might have made more important acquisitions in art.

But Girolamo was besides impeded to no small extent in his studies of art by the too earnest devotion with which he addicted himself to his pleasures and to playing on the lute, in which he spent the time that might have been given to his improvement in painting. He ultimately returned to Bologna, where, among many other portraits, he took that of the Florentine Messer Onofrio Bartolini, who was then pursuing his studies in Bologna, and who afterwards became Archbishop of Pisa: that head, which now belongs to the heirs of the above-named Messer Noferi, is an exceedingly beautiful one, and in a singularly graceful manner.