Garofalo, as has been related, the facade of the house of
Signor Battista Muzzarelli, and also the Palace of Coppara, a villa of
the Duke's, distant twelve miles from Ferrara; and, again, in Ferrara,
the facade of Piero Soncini in the Piazza near the Fishmarket, painting
there the Taking of Goletta by the Emperor Charles V. The same Girolamo
painted for S. Polo, a church of the Carmelite Friars in the same city,
a little altar-piece in oils of S. Jerome with two other Saints, of the
size of life; and for the Duke's Palace a great picture with a figure
large as life, representing Opportunity, and executed with beautiful
vivacity, movement and grace, and fine relief. He also painted a nude
Venus, life-size and recumbent, with Love beside her, which was sent to
Paris for King Francis of France; and I, who saw it at Ferrara in the
year 1540, can with truth affirm that it was very beautiful. He also
made a beginning with the decorations in the Refectory of S. Giorgio, a
seat of the Monks of Monte Oliveto at Ferrara, and executed a great part
of them; but he left the work unfinished, and it has been completed in
our own day by Pellegrino Pellegrini, a painter of Bologna.

[Illustration: SCENE FROM THE AENEID

(_After the painting by =Niccolo [Niccolo dell'Abate]=. Modena: R.
Galleria Estense_)

_Alinari_]

Now, if we were to seek to make particular mention of the pictures that
Girolamo executed for many lords and gentlemen, the story would be
longer than is our desire, and I shall speak of two only, which are most
beautiful. From a picture by the hand of Correggio that the Chevalier
Baiardo has at Parma, beautiful to a marvel, in which Our Lady is
putting a shirt on the Infant Christ, Girolamo made a copy so like it
that it seems the very same picture, and he made another copy from one
by the hand of Parmigiano, which is in the cell of the Vicar in the
Certosa at Pavia, doing this so well and with such diligence, that there
is no miniature to be seen that is wrought with more subtlety; and he
executed innumerable others with great care. And since Girolamo
delighted in architecture, and also gave his attention to it, in
addition to many designs of buildings that he made for private persons,
he served in that art, in particular, Cardinal Ippolito of Ferrara, who,
having bought the garden at Monte Cavallo in Rome which had formerly
belonged to the Cardinal of Naples, with many vineyards belonging to
individuals around it, t