painted before, to the apartments of
the Borgia Tower; whereupon Giovanni executed there a most beautiful
design in stucco-work, with many grotesques and various animals, and
Perino the cars of the seven planets. They had also to paint the walls
of that same hall, on which Giotto, according as is written by Platina
in the Lives of the Pontiffs, had formerly painted some Popes who had
been put to death for the faith of Christ, on which account that hall
was called for a time the Hall of the Martyrs. But the vaulting was
scarcely finished, when there took place that most unhappy sack of Rome,
and the work could not be pursued any further. Thereupon Giovanni,
having suffered not a little both in person and in property, returned
again to Udine, intending to stay there a long time; but in that he did
not succeed, for the reason that Pope Clement, after returning from
Bologna, where he had crowned Charles V, to Rome, caused Giovanni also
to return to that city, where he commissioned him first to make anew the
standards of the Castello di S. Angelo, and then to paint the ceiling of
the great chapel, the principal one in S. Pietro, where the altar of
that Saint is. Meanwhile, Fra Mariano having died, who had the office of
the Piombo, his place was given to Sebastiano Viniziano, a painter of
great repute, and to Giovanni a pension on the same of eighty
chamber-ducats.

Then, after the troubles of the Pontiff had in great measure ceased and
affairs in Rome had grown quiet, Giovanni was sent by his Holiness with
many promises to Florence, to execute in the new sacristy of S. Lorenzo,
which had been adorned with most excellent sculptures by Michelagnolo,
the ornaments of the tribune, which is full of sunk squares that
diminish little by little towards the central point. Setting his hand to
this, then, Giovanni carried it excellently well to completion with the
aid of many assistants, with most beautiful foliage, rosettes, and other
ornaments of stucco and gold; but in one thing he failed in judgment,
for the reason that on the flat friezes that form the ribs of the
vaulting, and on those that run crossways, so as to enclose the squares,
he made foliage, birds, masks, and figures that cannot be seen at all
from the ground, although they are very beautiful, by reason of the
distance, and also because they are divided up by other colours,
whereas, if he had painted them in colours without any other
elaboration, they would have been vi