Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/176

164 and galleries, all which Daniello executed in company with the other artists before alluded to; more particularly may be mentioned certain grottesche, which our artist filled with innumerable figures of women, all of very minute dimensions.

But that in which he was most especially successful was a story of Phaeton, in fresco, the figures of which were as large as life; there is indeed a River-god of colossal dimensions, which is an excellent figure. Now the Cardinal very frequently visited all these works while they were in course of execution, and as he took with him, now one person and now another, that circumstance caused Daniello to be made known to, and to form a friendship with, not a few among these visitors. At a somewhat later period it chanced that Perino del Vaga, who was then painting the Chapel of Messer Agnolo de’Massimi at the Trinità, required the aid of a young man for that work; and Daniello, who desired to learn all that he could, and was besides attracted by the promises of Perino, engaged himself to that artist, assisting him to execute many things in the above-named Chapel, all which Daniello performed with infinite diligence. Meanwhile, and before the sack of Rome, Perino having painted the Ceiling of the Chapel of the Crucifix in San Marcello, as we have said, depicting therein the Creation of Adam and Eve in figures as large as life, with figures of two Evangelists, San Giovanni and San Marco namely, which were much larger; the men of the Company who had commissioned him to execute that work, determined, when Rome had been restored to a state of quiet, that these figures, which were not finished, should then receive the requisite additions, the San Giovanni still requiring completion from the middle upwards.

But Perino had at that time other work on hand, and having prepared the Cartoons, he caused Daniello to proceed with them; when the latter first finished the San Giovanni, and subsequently added the two figures of the other Evangelists, San Luca and San Matteo, with two Boys holding Chandeliers between them. There are besides two Angels from his hand, within the arch of that side of the wall in which are the windows; they are represented as in the act of flight, and hovering, suspended on their wings, they display the „ instruments used in the Crucifixion of our Lord: the arch itself was very richly adorned by Daniello with grottesche,