rious
name at that time, and much my friend, I was forced to go there, since
he much desired to see me. And, moreover, I did it willingly, in order
to see on that journey the works of Tiziano and of other painters; in
which purpose I succeeded, for in a few days I saw the works of
Correggio at Modena and Parma, those of Giulio Romano at Mantua, and the
antiquities of Verona. Having finally arrived in Venice, with two
pictures painted by my hand from cartoons by Michelagnolo, I presented
them to Don Diego di Mendoza, who sent me two hundred crowns of gold.
Nor had I been long in Venice, when at the entreaty of Aretino I
executed for the gentlemen of the Calza the scenic setting for a
festival that they gave, wherein I had as my companions Battista Cungi
and Cristofano Gherardi of Borgo a San Sepolcro and Bastiano Flori of
Arezzo, men very able and well practised, of all which enough has been
said in another place; and also the nine painted compartments in the
Palace of Messer Giovanni Cornaro, which are in the soffit of a chamber
in that Palace, which is by S. Benedetto. After these and other works of
no little importance that I executed in Venice at that time, I departed,
although I was overwhelmed by the commissions that were coming to me, on
the 16th of August in the year 1542, and returned to Tuscany. There,
before consenting to put my hand to any other thing, I painted on the
vaulting of a chamber that had been built by my orders in my house which
I have already mentioned, all the arts that are subordinate to or depend
upon design. In the centre is a Fame who is seated upon the globe of the
world and sounds a golden trumpet, throwing away one of fire that
represents Calumny, and about her, in due order, are all those arts with
their instruments in their hands; and since I had not time to do the
whole, I left eight ovals, in order to paint in them eight portraits
from life of the first men in our arts. In those same days I executed in
fresco for the Nuns of S. Margherita in the same city, in a chapel of
their garden, a Nativity of Christ with figures the size of life. And
having thus passed the rest of that summer in my own country, and part
of the autumn, I went to Rome, where, having been received by the
above-named Messer Bindo with many kindnesses, I painted for him in a
picture in oils a Christ the size of life, taken down from the Cross and
laid on the ground at the feet of His Mother; with Phoebus in the air
ob