Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/83

Rh Sebastiano fell sick of a most violent fever, and being of very full habit, the disease attained to such a height that in a very few days he resigned his soul to God. Having made a will, he commanded that his remains should be carried to the tomb without any ceremony of priests or friars, nor would he have any expenses incurred for lights, but ordered that the amount which would have been thus expended should be distributed to the poor, for the love of God: and so was it done. Fra Sebastiano was buried in the Church of the Popolo, in the month of June of the year 1547.

The death of this master could scarcely be considered a great loss to Art, since from the moment that he had assumed the habit of a monk, he might very justly have been accounted among the departed. It is true that his pleasant qualities in conversation did cause many of his friends to lament his death, and indeed, many artists also. Young men, in some considerable number, resorted to Sebastiano at divers times, for the purpose of studying their art, but they rarely made any great profit, since from his example, they could learn little beside the art of good living. But from this remark we must except Tommaso Lanrati, a Sicilian, who, besides many other works, has executed in Bologna an exceedingly graceful picture of Venus, embracing and kissing her son Cupid. This work is in the house of Messer Francesco Bolognetti. He has likewise painted the portrait of the Signor Bernardino Savelli, which is highly commended; with other pictures, of which there is no need to make further mention.

Very great, without doubt, is the value of art, which, far from having regard to the favours of fortune, the possession of power, or the nobility of blood, is much more frequently found to bless, to sustain, nay, rather to exalt above the earth, some child of poverty, than one cradled amidst the luxuries of wealth. And this is so decreed by Heaven for