Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/92

84 beneath the windows, which are coloured to represent bronze, and which are the best stories of that kind in the whole work. Perino’s productions in this Loggia are in effect of such excellence, that they cause amazement in all who behold them, and not the paintings only, but the many works in stucco also which were there executed by his hand. The colouring of his works, moreover, is much more pleasing and more highly finished than that of any one among the other artists.

These labours caused Perino to be extolled beyond all belief, but the praises he heard lavished on him did not set him to sleep; on the contrary, as ability commended will ever increase, they served to stimulate his exertions, and incite him to still more zealous study, inspiring him meanwhile with the firm conviction that if he continued his endeavours he should one day find himself in possession of those honours and advantages of which he daily beheld Raphael and Michelagnolo to be in the full enjoyment. He laboured all the more readily also, because he perceived that he was held in much account by Giovanni da Udine and by Raphael, who very frequently employed him in works of importance. Towards Raphael he ever displayed the most perfect respect, and obedience the most unbounded, conducting himself as respected the master in such a manner that he was beloved by Raphael as a son.

Now at that time the ceiling of the Hall of the Pontiffs, whence you pass by the Loggie into the apartments of Pope Alexander VI., which had previously been adorned with paintings by Pinturicchio, was about to be painted by command of Pope Leo, and that commission was executed by Giovanni da Udine, and by Perino, who completed the works in stucco, with all the animals, grottesche, and ornaments of various kinds, there depicted, in company, as they did the beautiful and varied inventions exhibited in the compartments, which they had divided into spaces of a circular and oval form. And herein they delineated the seven planets of heaven, drawn by their appropriate animals Jupiter by his