Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/170

158 tinction in his calling, and no less remarkable for integrity and goodness of heart. Manno had a large family, and if Francesco had disposed of his property as might have been wished, and not spent the best fruits of his labours on offices to leave them to the Pope, he would have given a great part of them to the children of that good artist and excellent man. The before-mentioned Avveduto dell’ Avveduto, the furrier, was also among the intimates of Salviati, and was the most affectionate as well as most faithful friend that ever he possessed, nay, had he been in Kome when Francesco died, the affairs of the latter might perchance have been arranged in a manner altogether different.

The Spaniard Roviale was a disciple of Francesco Salviati, in company with whom he executed numerous works; and in the church of Santo Sprito in Rome, this Roviale painted a picture, entirely without assistance, the subject of that work being the Conversion of St. Paul. Salviati was much attached to Francesco the son of Girolamo del Prato, in whose company he practised drawing while yet a child, as we have related above. This Francesco was endowed with a brilliant genius; he drew better than any goldsmith of his time, and was in nowise inferior to his father Girolamo, whose works on plates of silver were admitted to surpass those of every other person. Nay, Girolamo, as it is said, succeeded easily in whatever he undertook; and among other things, is reported to have had a manner of beating out such plates with a mallet, and after placing them on a plank beneath a covering of wax, pitch, and tallow, he procured a material partly hard and partly soft, which he would then beat with irons, towards the inside or the outside as was required, and thus produced whatever forms he wished; heads, busts, arms, legs, trunks, or whatever other portion of the figure might be demanded by those who were in the habit of causing votive images of saints or other figures to be made, for the purpose of affixing them to the holy images of any place wherein they might have received some favour, or found that their supplications were heard with more than common effect. But Francesco di Girolamo