Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/525

Rh once more attaching myself to the service of Courts, which I had determined not to do. By many good reasons, however, I did finally come otf conqueror, and resolved that, before doing anything else, I would repair by all means to Rome, yet I did not succeed entirely in my purpose, seeing that my departure was delayed until I had made a copy for Messer Ottaviano, of the picture representing Pope Leo, Giulio Cardinal de’ Medici, and the Cardinal de’ Rossi, which Raffaello da Urbino had formerly painted, the Duke desiring to reclaim the original, which had remained until that time in the possession of Messer Ottaviano: the copy here in question is now in the house of that Noble’s heirs. For himself, when I left him for Rome, he gave me a letter of exchange for five hundred crowns on Giovambattista Puccini (who was to pay me that sum at sight), saying as he gave it me: “Use this for the better promotion of thy studies, and if ever thy leisure shall serve thee, thou shalt return it to me either in works or money, at thy own pleasure.”

Arriving in Rome in the month of February, 1538, I remained there till the end of June, devoting myself > to designing, in company with my young scholar, Giovambattista Cungi of the Borgo, all such antiquities or other works as I had not secured during the previous visits made to Rome, more particularly such things as were in the grottoes beneath the earth. Nor did I now omit any production of sculpture or architecture, but drew and measured them all; insomuch that I may truly affirm the designs made by me at that time to have been no less than three hundred, all which afforded me both advantage and pleasure, when looking over them in after years, and refreshing my memory as to the works of art in Rome. Nor did the profit which I had obtained from all these labours and studies fail to be perceived on my return to Tuscany, by the picture which I then painted at Monte Sansovino, and in which I delineated an Assumption of Our Lady, with a somewhat better manner: beneath are the Apostles, standing around the tomb, with SS. Agostino and Romualdo.

I subsequently went to the Camaldoli, as I had promised those Eremite Fathers to do; when I painted the Birth of Christ on the vaulting of the middle aisle, representing the splendour of Our Saviour incarnate as supplying the sole