he form of a facade, was made at the Petrone, and yet another on the
Piazza, which arches, with regard to the woodwork, were executed by
Battista Botticelli; and in these festive preparations, among other
things, Francesco made a beautiful perspective-scene for a comedy that
was performed.

About the same time, Giulio Camillo, who was then in Rome, having made a
book of his compositions in order to send it to King Francis of France,
had it all illustrated by Francesco Salviati, who put into it all the
diligence that it is possible to devote to such a work. Cardinal
Salviati, having a desire to possess a picture in tinted woods (that is,
in tarsia) by the hand of Fra Damiano da Bergamo, a lay-brother of S.
Domenico at Bologna, sent him a design done in red chalk by the hand of
Francesco, as a pattern for its execution; which design, representing
King David being anointed by Samuel, was the best thing that Cecchino
Salviati ever drew, and truly most rare. After this, Giovanni da
Cepperello and Battista Gobbo of San Gallo--who had caused the
Florentine painter Jacopo del Conte, then a young man, to paint in the
Florentine Company of the Misericordia in S. Giovanni Decollato, under
the Campidoglio at Rome, namely, in the second church where they hold
their assemblies, a story of that same S. John the Baptist, showing the
Angel appearing to Zacharias in the Temple--commissioned Francesco to
paint below that scene another story of the same Saint, namely, the
Visitation of Our Lady to S. Elizabeth. That work, which was finished in
the year 1538, he executed in fresco in such a manner, that it is worthy
to be numbered among the most graceful and best conceived pictures that
Francesco ever painted, in the invention, in the composition of the
scene, in the method and the attention to rules for the gradation of the
figures, in the perspective and the architecture of the buildings, in
the nudes, in the draped figures, in the grace of the heads, and, in
short, in every part; wherefore it is no marvel if all Rome was struck
with astonishment by it. Around a window he executed some bizarre
fantasies in imitation of marble, and some little scenes that have
marvellous grace. And since Francesco never wasted any time, while he
was engaged on that work he executed many other things, and also
drawings, and he coloured a Phaethon with the Horses of the Sun, which
Michelagnolo had drawn. All these things Salviati showed to Giorgio, who
after