Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/143

Rh by the Prophet Samuel; it is a truly beautiful composition, and the best ever designed by Cecchino Salviati.

It was about this period that Giovanni da Cepperello, and the Hunchback Battista da Sangallo, had caused the Florentine painter, Jacopo del Conte, who was then a youth, to paint a story of San Giovanni Battista for the Company of the Misericordia, in the Church of San Giovanni Decollato, which is situate beneath the Capitol in Rome, the work being executed in the second church that is to say, and where the said Company was accustomed to hold its sittings; the particular event there represented by Jacopo del Conte was the Appearance of the Angel to Zaccheriah; and the same persons now commissioned Francesco to paint another story from the life of the same Saint beneath that above-mentioned—the Visitation of our Lady to Sant’ Elizabetta namely. This work, which was completed in the year 1538, was executed in fresco, and is in so fine a manner that it merits to be numbered among the best and most thoughtfully-considered .. paintings ever produced by Francesco: whether we examine the composition of the picture, the careful attention to rule in the arrangement, the diminution, and due receding of the figures, the fine perspective and admirable architecture of the buildings, the beauty of the nude figures, the lovely expression of the heads, the grace of the draperies, or, at a word, the whole painting in each of its parts, we find it to be of such merit that we cannot be surprised if all Rome remained in astonishment at the perfection thereof.

Around a window in the same place Francesco painted certain fanciful decorations in imitation of marble, with little stories of minute figures which have infinite grace. And as it was not the habit of Francesco to waste his time, while thus employed with the work in question, he executed many other designs, and likewise coloured a picture of Phaeton, with the Horses of the Sun, which had been designed by Michelagnolo.

All these productions were shown by Salviati to Giorgio, who had gone to Rome for two months on the death of the