"So in Pisa, in Lucca, in Bologna, in Piacenza, in Parma, where there is the Parmesano,[189] in Milan, and in Naples. So in Genoa there is the house of Prince Doria, painted by Master Perino, with great judgment, especially the Storm of the Vessels of Æneas, in oils, and the ferocity of Neptune and his sea-horses; and likewise in another room there is a fresco, Jupiter fighting against the giants in Phlegra, overthrowing them with thunderbolts; and nearly the whole city is painted inside and out. And in many other castles and cities of Italy, such as Orvieto, Esi,[190] Ascoli, and Como, there are pictures nobly painted, and all of great price, for I only speak of such; and if we were to speak of the private paintings and pictures that every one holds dearer than life, it would be to speak of the innumerable, and there are to be found in Italy some cities which are nearly all painted with tolerable painting, inside and out."
It seemed that Michael was coming to a conclusion, when the Lady Marchioness, looking at me, said:
"Do you not remark, M. Francisco, that M. Michael abstained from speaking of Rome, the mother of painting, so as not to talk of his own works? Now what he would not do, let us not fail to do for the purpose of ensnaring him the more, for when one deals with famous paintings, no other has such value as the fount from which they are derived and proceed. And this work is in the head and fount of the Church, I mean in St. Peter's in Rome; a great vault, in fresco, with its circuit and curvatures of arches, and a façade, in which M. Angelo divinely made us understand and divided into histories how God first created the world, with many images of Sibyls and figures of exceedingly great artistic beauty [pg 292]and artifice. And what is singular is, that doing nothing more than this work, which as yet he has not completed, and having commenced it when a youth, there is therein comprised the work of twenty painters united in that vault alone. Raphael of Urbino painted in this city a second work of such art that it would have been the first if the other had not existed. It is a hall and two chambers and a loggia in fresco, in the palaces of the said St. Peter, a magnificent thing of many elegant stories of a very decorous description. And the story of Apollo playing his harp amongst the nine muses in the Parnasus is singular. In the house[191] of Augustimguis (Chigi) Raphael has painted very preciously a poetry, the story of Psyche, and very gracefully he surrounded Galatea by mermen in the middle of the waves and by cupids in the air. The picture in S. Pietro in Montorio of the Transfiguration of our Lord,[192] in oils, is very good, and another in Aracœli, and in the Temple of Peace, in fresco.[193] The picture in S. Pietro in Montorio by the hand of Bastiäo Veneziano[194] is famous; he did it in competition with Raphael. There are many facades of palaces in this city, in white and black,[195] by Baltesar[196] di Siena, architect, and by Marturino and by Polidoro, a man who in that manner of working magnificently enriched Rome. Further, there are here many palaces of Cardinals and other men painted in grotesque and in stucco and with many other varieties of art, for the city is more painted than any other in the whole world, apart from the private pictures that every one holds dearer than life itself. But of the things outside the city, the Vigna, begun by Pope Clement VII., at the foot of Monte Mario, is most worth seeing; [pg 293]it is ornamented by the fine painting and sculpture of Raphael and Julius, where the giant lies sleeping, whose feet the satyrs are measuring with shepherds' crooks. You now see whether these are works which would lead us to be silent about our city."
And she was already ceasing to speak, when I remembered me, and said:
"No doubt your Excellency also forgot the famous tomb or chapel of the Medici in San Lorenzo, at Florence, painted in marble by M. Angelo, with such a generous number of statues in full relief that it can certainly compete with any of the great works of antiquity; where the goddess or image of Night, sleeping above the nocturnal bird, and the melancholy Death in Life pleased me the most, although there are there many noble sculptures around the Dawn. But I cannot omit the mention of a painting which I saw, even though it was outside Italy, in France or Provence, in the City of Avignon, in a Franciscan monastery: it is that of a dead woman who had been very beautiful, she was called the Beautiful Anna; a king of France who liked painting and who painted (if I am not mistaken) called Reynel, came to Avignon and inquired whether the Beautiful Anna was there because he greatly desired to see her to paint her from life, and having been told that she had died shortly before, the king caused her to be disinterred to see whether still in her bones there were some traces of her beauty. He found her clothed, in the old style, as if she were alive, with her golden hair dressed on her head, but all the gay beauty of the face, which alone was uncovered, had changed into a skull; notwithstanding this, the painter king considered it so beautiful that he painted her from nature, surrounding his work with verses which mourn and are still mourning for her. Which work I saw in that place and I thought it very worthy."
All were pleased with my picture, and M. Angelo added [pg 294]that in Narbonne I would have also seen the picture St. Sebastian in the Cathedral, and he said:
"In France there is some good painting, and the King of France has many palaces and pleasure houses with innumerable paintings, both in Fontainebleau, where the king kept together two hundred painters, well paid, for a certain time; and in Madrid, the pleasure house which he built, where he voluntarily imprisons himself at times, in memory of Madrid in Spain where he was a prisoner."
"I think," said M. Lactancio, "that I heard a while ago Francisco d'Ollanda name amongst paintings the tomb that you, Senhor Michael, sculptured in marble; but I do not understand how sculpture can be called painting."
Then I began to laugh heartily, and begging permission of the Master, said:
"To save Senhor Michael trouble I will reply to Senhor Lactancio concerning this doubt of his, which has followed me here from my own country.