re to go there, no matter how
great, out of anyone. From Florence he returned to Rome, and there
entered an action against those who had guaranteed his allowances from
the Cardinal of Lorraine, and compelled them to pay him in full; and
when he had received the money he bought some offices, in addition to
others that he held before, with a firm resolve to look after his own
life, knowing that he was not in good health and that he had wholly
ruined his constitution. Notwithstanding that, he would have liked to be
employed in great works; but in this he did not succeed so readily, and
he occupied himself for a time with executing pictures and portraits.

Pope Paul IV having died, Pius was elected, likewise the Fourth of that
name, who, much delighting in building, availed himself of Pirro Ligorio
in matters of architecture; and his Holiness ordained that Cardinals
Alessandro Farnese and Emulio should cause the Great Hall, called the
Hall of Kings, to be finished by Daniello da Volterra, who had begun it.
That very reverend Farnese did his utmost to obtain the half of that
work for Francesco, and in consequence there was a long contention
between Daniello and Francesco, particularly because Michelagnolo
Buonarroti exerted himself in favour of Daniello, and for a time they
arrived at no conclusion. Meanwhile, Vasari having gone with Cardinal
Giovanni de' Medici, the son of Duke Cosimo, to Rome, Francesco related
to him his many difficulties, and in particular that in which, for the
reasons just given, he then found himself; and Giorgio, who much loved
the excellence of the man, showed him that up to that time he had
managed his affairs very badly, and that for the future he should let
him (Vasari) manage them, for he would so contrive that in one way or
another the half of that Hall of Kings would fall to him to execute,
which Daniello was not able to finish by himself, being a slow and
irresolute person, and almost certainly not as able and versatile as
Francesco. Matters standing thus, and nothing more being done for the
moment, not many days afterwards Giorgio himself was requested by the
Pope to paint part of that Hall, but he answered that he had one three
times larger to paint in the Palace of his master, Duke Cosimo, and, in
addition, that he had been so badly treated by Pope Julius III, for whom
he had executed many labours in the Vigna on the Monte and elsewhere,
that he no longer knew what to expect from certain ki