Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/193

Rh sometimes practising a little drawing, as he best could. It is true that he did at last succeed in fixing himself as a disciple with a certain Calabrian called Giovan Piero, hut he did not derive much profit from doing so, since this man, with his wife, a most ill-tempered woman, kept him to the grinding of colours day and night. They furthermore caused him to suffer from actual want of food, and to the end that he might not have sufiicient for his hunger, or take bread when he desired it, they hung their loaf in a basket suspended from the ceiling and furnished with bells, which jingled whenever the basket was touched, thus serving as a kind of spy to betray such hands as might invade the same. All this would nevertheless have given but little trouble to Taddeo, if he could have been allowed the time to copy certain works of Raffaello da Urbino, which were in the possession of that miserable master of his.

The above-mentioned, and many other strange proceedings, caused Taddeo to leave Giovan Piero, and he then resolved to work for himself, taking refuge among the different workshops of Pome, wherein he had now begun to be known, and expending one part of the week in working to live, while he employed the remainder in drawing, more especially from the works of Raphael, in the house of Agostino Chigi, and in other Palaces of Pome. And as at this time it often happened to him that when the night came he had no place wherein to lay his head, so did he take shelter many a night in the Loggie of the above-named Chigi, or in other places of the same kind. These sufferings did not fail permanently to affect his health, nay, had he not been supported by the force of his youth, they would most probably have killed him altogether; as it was they caused him to fall dangerously ill, and as Francesco Sant’ Agnolo, his kinsman, did not help him then any more than he had done before, the poor Taddeo, that he might not finish his life amidst the wretchedness by which he was then surrounded, was compelled to return to Sant’ Agnolo and to the house of his father.

But not to waste more time over matters which are not of primary importance, and having sufficiently shown the pains and sufferings with which Taddeo acquired his art, I will but say, that being at length recovered, he returned once more to Rome and resumed his studies, but this time he took somewhat better care of himself than he had previously