Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/142

130 at San Marco, and, as we have said before, were the best of all the pictures prepared for these festivals.

Now the Signor Pier Luigi Farnese had at that time been made Lord of Nepi, and, desiring to adorn that city with new buildings and pictures, he took Francesco into his service, giving him apartments in the Belvedere, and causing him to paint certain stories from the Life of Alexander the Great in water-colours on cloth; these were afterwards sent into Flanders, there to be woven into cloth of arras and tapestries. For the same Signor of Nepi Francesco also decorated a large and handsome Bath-room, with numerous stories and figures painted in fresco.

When the above-named Signor Pier Luigi was subsequently made Duke of Castro, Francesco was furthermore employed to superintend the rich and magnificent preparations made for his first entry into the city, when he constructed a Triumphal Arch, among other works, covering the same with stories, figures, and statues, all arranged with infinite judgment, and executed by artists of ability, more especially by Alessandro, called Scherano, a sculptor of Settignano. Another Arch in the form of a Fa9ade was erected at the Petrone, with a third on the Piazza; and these were constructed, so far as regarded the wood-work, by Battista Botticelli. For these festivities, moreover, Francesco prepared the scenic decorations, with five perspective views for the performance of a dramatic spectacle which was exhibited on that occasion.

About this time, Giulio Camillo, who was then in Rome, had made a book of his Compositions, for the purpose of sending them into France to King Francis, and he now caused this book to be adorned with pictures by Francesco, who executed his task with all the zeal and diligence which it was possible to bestow on a work of such a character.

Now the Cardinal Salviati desired to possess a work by the hand of Fra Damiano, of Bergamo, who was a lay-brother of the Monastery of San Domenico at Bologna, a picture made of tinted woods, or “in Tarsia” that is to say. He therefore sent Fra Damiano a design in red chalk, which he had caused Francesco to make of the subject that he