Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/182

170 one of the stories, but did not paint more than about two braccia, with two of the kings in the tabernacles over the doors. For, although much pressed to hasten his movements by Cardinal Farnese as well as the Pope, he conducted the work very slowly, not considering that Death but too frequently steps in to spoil designs which are too long deferred; insomuch, that when Pope Paul departed this life in 1549, there was no part of the work completed but that indicated above.

At this time it became necessary to clear the Hall for the Conclave which was to assemble there, the whole space being filled with the scaffoldings and wood-work erected for the execution of the paintings and stuccoes; all these impedi-, ments had now to be removed, and the pictures were consequently given to view. The decorations being thus seen by every one, the stucco-work was very greatly extolled, as indeed it merited to be; but not so the two pictures of the Kings, which were far from approaching the excellence of the paintings executed at the Trinità, insomuch that Daniello, with all those fine appointments and rich stipends, was adjudged to have rather retrograded than made improvement in his manner.

In the year 1550 Julius III. was created High Pontiff, when Daniello put himself forward by means of his friends, in the hope of retaining the same salaries, and of being permitted to continue the works of the Hall; but the Pope, did not show the wished-for disposition towards him, and put off the question continually; nay, when he afterwards turned his attention to matters of art, his Holiness sent to summon Giorgio Vasari, who had already been in his service —when that Pontiff was Archbishop of Sipontino namely— Daniello was nevertheless employed some time after, and the matter happened on this wise. His Holiness resolved to construct a fountain at the head of the Corridor of the Belvedere; and the design presented by Michelagnolo, which was a figure of Moses striking the Rock whence he causes the waters to flow, did not please him, seeing that its execution was likely to occupy much time, since it was to be sculptured in marble. It was therefore decided, in pursuit of the counsel of Giorgio, that a divine figure of Cleopatra made by the Greeks, should be used for the purposes of that fountain, when the charge of the work, by the intervention