rdo
Castellani, as he still does; but of these men, since they are alive and
in constant practice of their art, there is no need to make mention.

The pictures of Maestro Marco were executed by him between 1508 and
1542. He had a companion in another Calabrian (whose name I do not
know), who worked for a long time in Rome with Giovanni da Udine and
executed many works by himself in that city, particularly facades in
chiaroscuro. The same Calabrian also painted in fresco the Chapel of the
Conception in the Church of the Trinita, with much skill and diligence.

At this same time lived Niccola, commonly called by everyone Maestro
Cola dalla Matrice, who executed many works in Calabria, at Ascoli, and
at Norcia, which are very well known, and which gained for him the name
of a rare master--the best, indeed, that there had ever been in these
parts. And since he also gave his attention to architecture, all the
buildings that were erected in his day at Ascoli and throughout all that
province had him as architect. Cola, without caring to see Rome or to
change his country, remained always at Ascoli, living happily for some
time with his wife, a woman of good and honourable family, and endowed
with extraordinary nobility of spirit, as was proved when the strife of
parties arose at Ascoli, in the time of Pope Paul III. For then, while
she was flying with her husband, with many soldiers in pursuit, more on
her account (for she was a very beautiful young woman) than for any
other reason, she resolved, not seeing any other way in which she could
save her own honour and the life of her husband, to throw herself from a
high cliff to the depth below. At which all the soldiers believed that
she was not only mortally injured, but dashed to pieces, as indeed she
was; wherefore they left the husband without doing him any harm, and
returned to Ascoli. After the death of this extraordinary woman, worthy
of eternal praise, Maestro Cola passed the rest of his life with little
happiness. A short time afterwards, Signor Alessandro Vitelli, who had
become Lord of Matrice,[14] took Maestro Cola, now an old man, to Citta
di Castello, where he caused him to paint in his palace many works in
fresco and many other pictures; which works finished, Maestro Cola
returned to finish his life at Matrice.

This master would have acquitted himself not otherwise than passing
well, if he had practised his art in places where rivalry and emulation
might have mad