Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/524

512 Jeronimo, both of whom had been hermits, living in the woods and deserts. I then descended to their Abbey of Camaldoli, where I quickly prepared a design, which being found to please the fathers, I then began the picture. This was completed, and fixed in its place at the end of two months, to the great satisfaction of those hermits (as they gave me to understand) as well as my own: and during those two months I furthermore discovered how much more favourable to study is a calm repose and agreeable solitude, than the tumult of cities and courts; I perceived, likewise, that my error had been great when I had before placed my hopes in men, and made my pleasure of the levities and follies of the world. That picture being finished, as has been said above, I at once received the commission for the remainder of the chapels in the aisle, the Stories and other paintings in fresco that is to say, which were to be executed in the upper and lower parts of the same, all which I was to execute in the succeeding summer, since it would be scarcely possible to work in fresco amidst those mountains during the winter season.

Having then returned to Arezzo, I finished the picture of San Rocco, depicting Our Lady with six Saints, and a figure of the Almighty Rather therein: the latter having certain arrows in his hand, to signify the pestilence which he is in the act of launching on the city; while San Rocco and other Saints are interceding for the people. On the wall are numerous figures in fresco, and these, as well as the Altarpiece itself, are—as they are.

I was then sent for by Fra Bastiano Graziani, a Monk of St. Agostino, at Monte Sansovino, who invited me into the Val di Caprese, and gave me a large picture in oil to paint for the High Altar of the Church of Sant’ Agostino in the above-named Monte. Having made our agreement for the same, I then repaired to Florence for the purpose of visiting Messer Ottaviano de’ Medici; and remaining there some few days, I had no small difficulty to avoid the temptation of