Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/519

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Having returned to my wonted studies, I obtained the advantage, by the intervention of Messer Ottaviano, of a free admission, at whatever *hour I pleased, into the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo, where are the works of Michelagnolo, who had then gone to Rome; these I studied, therefore, for some time, with much diligence, just as they were lying on the ground, that is to say. Then, setting to work, I painted, in a picture of three braccia, the figure of our Saviour Christ when dead, and in the act of being borne by Nicodemus, Joseph, and others, to the Sepulchre. Behind them come the Maries weeping. The Duke Alessandro took this painting,—a good and fortunate commencement for my labours, seeing that the work was not only held in estimation by that Prince while he lived, but was placed after his death in the apartments of Duke Cosimo, whence it has passed into those of the Prince his son, where it still remains. I have often wished to retouch and improve it in certain parts, but have never been permitted to do so?

After having seen this, my first work, the Duke Alessandro ordered me to finish that apartment on the ground floor of the Palazzo de’ Medici, which had been left incomplete by Griovanni da Udine, as we have related elsewhere. Here then I depicted four Stories from, the Life of Caesar; the first showing him as he swims the river with the Commentaries in his mouth and his sword in his hand; in the second he is causing the writings of Pompey to be^i^burnt, that he may not see the works of his enemies; in the third he is making himself known to the pilot when assailed by a storm at sea; and in the fourth is the Triumph of Caesar, but this last was never entirely finished.

At this time, although 1 was but little more than eighteen years old, the Duke assigned to me a provi.sion of six crowns per month, with a place at table for myself, board for a servant, rooms for my habitation, and other advantages. I felt persuaded that I was far from deserving so much, but I did all that I knew how to do with love and diligent zeal; nor did I shrink from inquiring of those who knew better