at Rosso never did worse; and, what is more, this work has to
bear comparison with those of Raffaello da Urbino.

At this time he painted for Bishop Tornabuoni, who was his friend, a
picture of a Dead Christ supported by two angels, which was a most
beautiful piece of work, and is now in the possession of the heirs of
Monsignor della Casa. For Baviera he made drawings of all the Gods, for
copper-plates, which were afterwards engraved by Jacopo Caraglio; one of
them being Saturn changing himself into a horse, and the most noteworthy
that of Pluto carrying off Proserpine. He executed a sketch for the
Beheading of S. John the Baptist, which is now in a little church on the
Piazza de' Salviati in Rome.

Meanwhile the sack of the city took place, and poor Rosso was taken
prisoner by the Germans and used very ill, for, besides stripping him of
his clothes, they made him carry weights on his back barefooted and with
nothing on his head, and remove almost the whole stock from a
cheesemonger's shop. Thus ill-treated by them, he escaped with
difficulty to Perugia, where he was warmly welcomed and reclothed by the
painter Domenico di Paris, for whom he drew the cartoon for a
panel-picture of the Magi, a very beautiful work, which is to be seen in
the house of Domenico. But he did not stay long in that place, for,
hearing that Bishop Tornabuoni, who was very much his friend, and had
also fled from the sack, had gone to Borgo a San Sepolcro, he made his
way thither.

There was living at that time in Borgo a San Sepolcro a pupil of Giulio
Romano, the painter Raffaello dal Colle; and this master, having
undertaken for a small price to paint a panel for S. Croce, the seat of
a Company of Flagellants, in his native city, lovingly resigned the
commission and gave it to Rosso, to the end that he might leave some
example of his handiwork in that place. At this the Company showed
resentment, but the Bishop gave him every facility; and when the
picture, which brought him credit, was finished, it was set up in S.
Croce. The Deposition from the Cross that it contains is something very
rare and beautiful, because he rendered in the colours a certain effect
of darkness to signify the eclipse that took place at Christ's death,
and because it was executed with very great diligence.

Afterwards, at Citta di Castello, he received the commission for a
panel-picture, on which he was about to set to work, when, as it was
being primed with gesso, a