Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/89

Rh was thus contemplating the features of these his idols, from the depths of his infinite lowliness and poverty; comparing the debasement of the last with the elevation of the first, and conscious that he had nothing but the force of his will to assist him in his purpose of attaining to the eminence whereon they shone; he reflected that there was none to aid or minister to him for the support of his life. He was thus compelled, if he would possess the means of existence, to work, now for this painter and then for another, in any shop that might be open to him, precisely in the manner of a labourer who delves for his daily hire. But the grief with which he reflected on the impediments offered to his studies by this mode of life was very bitter, nor could he fail to remark, that the progress he made was but small as compared with that to which his love of art, his desire for improvement, and his potent necessities were all alike impelling him.

He therefore resolved to make an equal division of his time, giving the one half of the week to working at daywork, and reserving the other half for his labours in design: to this second portion he added all the festivals and a great part of the nights, stealing time from Time as it were, in the hope of one day becoming famous, and for the present purpose of escaping so far as was possible from dependence on others.

Having carried this determination into practice, Perino began to draw in the chapel of Pope Julius, wherein Michelagnolo had depicted the ceiling, but imitating the manner and modes of proceeding of Raffaello da Urbino. He then proceeded to design the antiquities in marble, and to copy the grottesche which he found in the subterranean portions of the Roman edifices, being pleased with the originality and varied power of invention displayed therein. He acquired the methods of working in stucco likewise, earning with toilsome labour his scanty crust meanwhile, and enduring every extreme of poverty and wretchedness in the hope of rendering himself excellent in his vocation.

Nor did any great length of time elapse before he became the best and most accomplished designer of all the many who then studied drawing in Rome, seeing that he had a more exact knowledge of the muscular development, and