wo large pictures, in which is the
rest of the Courts, with horses, elephants, and giraffes, and about the
chapel, in various places, are distributed Prophets, Sibyls, and
Evangelists in the act of writing. In the cupola, or rather, tribune, I
painted four great figures that treat of the praises of Christ, of His
Genealogy, and of the Virgin, and these are Orpheus and Homer with some
Greek mottoes, Virgil with the motto, IAM REDIT ET VIRGO, etc., and
Dante with these verses:

Tu sei colei, che l' umana natura
Nobilitasti si, che il suo Fattore
Non si sdegno di farsi tua fattura.

With many other figures and inventions, of which there is no need to say
any more. Then, the work of writing the above-mentioned book and
carrying it to completion meanwhile continuing, I painted for the
high-altar of S. Francesco, in Rimini, a large altar-picture in oils of
S. Francis receiving the Stigmata from Christ on the mountain of La
Vernia, copied from nature; and since that mountain is all of grey rocks
and stones, and in like manner S. Francis and his companion are grey, I
counterfeited a Sun within which is Christ, with a good number of
Seraphim, and so the work is varied, and the Saint, with other figures,
all illumined by the splendour of that Sun, and the landscape in shadow
with a great variety of changing colours; all which is not displeasing
to many persons, and was much extolled at that time by Cardinal
Capodiferro, Legate in Romagna.

Being then summoned from Rimini to Ravenna, I executed an altar-picture,
as has been told in another place, for the new church of the Abbey of
Classi, of the Order of Camaldoli, painting therein a Christ taken down
from the Cross and lying in the lap of Our Lady. And at this same time I
executed for divers friends many designs, pictures, and other lesser
works, which are so many and so varied, that it would be difficult for
me to remember even a part of them, and perhaps not pleasing for my
readers to hear so many particulars.

Meanwhile the building of my house at Arezzo had been finished, and I
returned home, where I made designs for painting the hall, three
chambers, and the facade, as it were for my own diversion during that
summer. In those designs I depicted, among other things, all the places
and provinces where I had laboured, as if they were bringing tributes,
to represent the gains that I had made by their means, to that house of
mine. For the time being, however, I