Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/495

Rh eliotrope, lapis, and agate, with other stones and jewels worth twenty thousand crowns. The execution of this table was confided to Bernardino di Porfirio of Leccio, a place in the neighbourhood of Florence. Bernardino is admirable in works of this kind, and has executed an octangle of ebony and ivory, inlaid with jaspers, for Messer Bindo Altoviti, after the designs of Vasari. This Bernardino is still in the service of their Excellencies.

But returning to Buontalenti I add, that, contrary to the expectation of many, he proved himself capable of painting large figures equally well with small ones, by that great Story which he prepared for the obsequies of Michelagnolo, as we have before related. He was employed, to his great credit, at the nuptials of our Prince also; for certain maskings that is to say, for the Triumph of Dreams, of which I propose to speak elsewhere, and for the Interludes of the Dramatic Spectacle given at the Palace, as other writers have related at full length. Nay, had Bernardo attended to the studies of art in his first youth (he is now but thirty years old), as he did to the construction of fortresses, in which he spent much time, he would now perchance have attained to an unusually high degree of eminence; it is indeed even yet expected that he will do so, although somewhat later, seeing that he is all genius and talent, and has besides the further advantage of being constantly employed by his sovereign in the most honourable occupations.

The Fleming, Giovanni della Strada, is also one of our Academicians; and to good design, a rich fancy, and admirable power of invention, this artist adds an excellent method of colouring; he has worked much in fresco, in oil, and in tempera, during the last ten years, under the direction and from the designs of Giorgio Vasari, in the Ducal Palace: Giovanni may indeed declare himself the equal of any painter in the Duke’s service. But his principal occupation just at present is to prepare Cartoons for arras, also after the designs of Vasari, which the Duke and Prince are causing to be made in divers manners to correspond with the paintings executed by Vasari in the upper parts of the various chambers of the Palace, to the end that the tapestries below may be in harmony with the pictures above. For the Halls of Saturn, Ops, Ceres, Jupiter, and Hercules, Giovanni has made very beautiful Cartoons for about thirtv pieces of