Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/236

224 by moonlight, and, if the space permit, an elephant kneeling in adoration of the moon.

“Lastly, on the frieze of the left hand wall you may have mathematicians with their instruments, thieves, coiners, treasure-seekers, shepherds in their still closed folds, lying around their fires, with objects of similar character. For animals, I would have wolves, foxes, apes, lap-dogs, and whatever other creatures of that malicious and traitorous nature there may be found.

“Now in this part I have spoken my thoughts thus at hazard, merely to intimate the kind of inventions that may here be employed; but as none of them need to be more minutely described, I leave you to imagine them at your own pleasure, knowing that painters are by their nature well-endowed and graceful in all such phantasies. Having thus completed the whole work, therefore, I do not think of anything more to say to you, unless it be that you should consult with Monsignore the Cardinal respecting all, arranging everything after his taste, and adding or diminishing as may be required. Seek, also, on your own part, to do yourself honour. Fare you well.”

But although these fine inventions of Caro were fanciful and ingenious, Taddeo could but execute such of them as the place would contain. It is, however, true that these were the principal part, and they were completed by him with much grace and in a good manner. Beside the chamber here described, and in the last of the three which is dedicated to Solitude, our artist, with the aid of his assistants, depicted our Saviour Christ, preaching to the Apostles in the deserts and woods: to the right we have San Giovanni, an exceedingly well executed figure. In a Story opposite to this are those hermits who have retired to the wilderness to avoid the conversation of men, some even taking out their own eyes, that they may no more see the world, while others are labouring to disturb them, and some are throwing stones at the hermits.

Here also we have the Emperor Charles V., a Portrait from the Life, with the following inscription:—

Opposite to Charles is the Portrait of the last Grand Turk,