age of nineteen.

Then, having conceived a desire to see Rome, like one who was on the
path of progress and heard much praise given to the works of good
masters, and particularly to those of Raffaello and Michelagnolo, he
spoke out his mind and desire to his old uncles, who, thinking that such
a wish was not otherwise than worthy of praise, said that they were
content that he should go, but that it would be well for him to take
with him some work by his own hand, which might serve to introduce him
to the noblemen of that city and to the craftsmen of his profession.
This advice was not displeasing to Francesco, and he painted three
pictures, two small and one of some size, representing in the last the
Child in the arms of the Madonna, taking some fruits from the lap of an
Angel, and an old man with his arms covered with hair, executed with art
and judgment, and pleasing in colour. Besides this, in order to
investigate the subtleties of art, he set himself one day to make his
own portrait, looking at himself in a convex barber's mirror. And in
doing this, perceiving the bizarre effects produced by the roundness of
the mirror, which twists the beams of a ceiling into strange curves, and
makes the doors and other parts of buildings recede in an extraordinary
manner, the idea came to him to amuse himself by counterfeiting
everything. Thereupon he had a ball of wood made by a turner, and,
dividing it in half so as to make it the same in size and shape as the
mirror, set to work to counterfeit on it with supreme art all that he
saw in the glass, and particularly his own self, which he did with such
lifelike reality as could not be imagined or believed. Now everything
that is near the mirror is magnified, and all that is at a distance is
diminished, and thus he made the hand engaged in drawing somewhat
large, as the mirror showed it, and so marvellous that it seemed to be
his very own. And since Francesco had an air of great beauty, with a
face and aspect full of grace, in the likeness rather of an angel than
of a man, his image on that ball had the appearance of a thing divine.
So happily, indeed, did he succeed in the whole of this work, that the
painting was no less real than the reality, and in it were seen the
lustre of the glass, the reflection of every detail, and the lights and
shadows, all so true and natural, that nothing more could have been
looked for from the brain of man.

[Illustration: THE MARRIAGE OF S. CATHAR