Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/554

542 yet been completed when the death of Pope Paul III. took place, and I thought 1 should be compelled to leave Florence before the printing could be finished. For it had chanced that going out of the city gate to meet Cardinal Monte, who was passing through on his way to the Conclave, I had no sooner made my bow to that prelate and spoken a few words with him, than he said to me, “I am going to Rome, and shall infallibly be elected Pope; wherefore, if thou hast anything to desire, hasten to follow me, so soon as the news shall arrive, without waiting any other invitation than that I now give thee, or seeking any further intelligence.”

Nor was this prognostic a vain word; being at Arezzo during the Carnival of that year, I was making arrangements for certain festivals and inaskings, when there came a messenger with the news that the aforesaid Cardinal had become Pope Julius III. Mounting my horse, therefore, without delay, I proceeded to Florence, whence, hastened by the Duke, I departed at once for Rome, to be present at the Coronation of the new Pontiff, and to make arrangements for the festivities consequent thereon.

Arrived at Rome, and dismounting at the house of Messer Bindo, I went immediately afterwards to kiss the feet of His Holiness, which, when I had done, his first words were to remind me that the prediction he had uttered had not proved to be untrue.

Having been crowned, and the confusion which always accompanies a change having passed. Pope Julius was anxious, first of all, to acquit himself of a duty to the elder and first Cardinal di Monte, by erecting a Tomb for that prelate at San Piero in Montorio. The designs and models were made accordingly; and it was constructed in marble, as I have related at length in another place. The Altar-piece for the Chapel was meanwhile painted by myself, and I depicted thereon the Conversion of St. Paul; but to vary it somewhat from that of Michelagnolo, in the Paolina, I represented the saint still young, according to his own relation, and at the moment when, having fallen from his horse, he is conducted by the Soldiers to Ananias, from whom, by the imposition of hands, he receives his lost sight, and is baptized.

But in this work, either on account of the restricted space,