the Council of Eight, a tribunal
much feared in Florence. There he laid his complaint; and, Rosso having
been summoned, the ape was condemned in jest to carry a weight fastened
to his tail, to prevent him from jumping on pergole, as he did before.
And so Rosso made a wooden cylinder swinging on a chain, and kept it on
the ape, in such a way that he could go about the house but no longer
jump about over other people's property. The ape, seeing himself
condemned to such a punishment, seemed to guess that the friar was
responsible. Every day, therefore, he exercised himself in hopping step
by step with his legs, holding the weight with his hands; and thus,
resting often, he succeeded in his design. For, being one day loose
about the house, he hopped step by step from roof to roof, during the
hour when the Guardian was away chanting Vespers, and came to the roof
over his chamber. There, letting go the weight, he kept up for half an
hour such a lovely dance, that not a single tile of any kind remained
unbroken. Then he went back home; and within three days, when rain came,
were heard the Guardian's lamentations.

Rosso, having finished his works, took the road to Rome with Battistino
and the ape; in which city his works were sought for with extraordinary
eagerness, great expectations having been awakened about them by the
sight of some drawings executed by him, which were held to be
marvellous, for Rosso drew divinely well and with the highest finish.
There, in the Pace, over the pictures of Raffaello, he executed a work
which is the worst that he ever painted in all his days. Nor can I
imagine how this came to pass, save from a reason which has been seen
not only in his case, but also in that of many others, and which appears
to be an extraordinary thing, and one of the secrets of nature; and it
is this, that he who changes his country or place of habitation seems to
change his nature, talents, character, and personal habits, insomuch
that sometimes he seems to be not the same man but another, and all
dazed and stupefied. This may have happened to Rosso in the air of Rome,
and on account of the stupendous works of architecture and sculpture
that he saw there, and the paintings and statues of Michelagnolo, which
may have thrown him off his balance; which works also drove Fra
Bartolommeo di San Marco and Andrea del Sarto to flight, and prevented
them from executing anything in Rome. Certain it is, be the cause what
it may, th