and recognizing that God and Nature had been the boy's
first masters, they did not fail to take the greatest pains to make him
learn to draw under the discipline of the best masters, to the end that
he might acquire a good manner. And coming by degrees to believe that he
had been born, so to speak, with brushes in his fingers, on the one hand
they urged him on, and on the other, fearing lest overmuch study might
perchance spoil his health, they would sometimes hold him back. Finally,
having come to the age of sixteen, and having already done miracles of
drawing, he painted a S. John baptizing Christ, of his own invention, on
a panel, which he executed in such a manner that even now whoever sees
it stands marvelling that such a work should have been painted so well
by a boy. This picture was placed in the Nunziata, the seat of the Frati
de' Zoccoli at Parma. Not content with this, however, Francesco resolved
to try his hand at working in fresco, and therefore painted a chapel in
S. Giovanni Evangelista, a house of Black Friars of S. Benedict; and
since he succeeded in that kind of work, he painted as many as seven.

But about that time Pope Leo X sent Signor Prospero Colonna with an army
to Parma, and the uncles of Francesco, fearing that he might perchance
lose time or be distracted, sent him in company with his cousin,
Girolamo Mazzuoli, another boy-painter, to Viadana, a place belonging to
the Duke of Mantua, where they lived all the time that the war lasted;
and there Francesco painted two panels in distemper. One of these, in
which are S. Francis receiving the Stigmata, and S. Chiara, was placed
in the Church of the Frati de' Zoccoli; and the other, which contains a
Marriage of S. Catharine, with many figures, was placed in S. Piero. And
let no one believe that these are works of a young beginner, for they
seem to be rather by the hand of a full-grown master.

The war finished, Francesco, having returned with his cousin to Parma,
first completed some pictures that he had left unfinished at his
departure, which are in the hands of various people. After this he
painted a panel-picture in oils of Our Lady with the Child in her arms,
with S. Jerome on one side and the Blessed Bernardino da Feltro on the
other, and in the head of one of these figures he made a portrait of the
patron of the picture, which is so wonderful that it lacks nothing save
the breath of life. All these works he executed before he had reached
the