brought from Florence, was not being
fulfilled, in consequence of the profit and advantage that Vaga was
drawing from his services, and he resolved to go thither by himself;
which was the reason that Vaga, leaving all his works, took him to Rome.
And there, through the love that he bore to art, Perino returned to his
former work of drawing and continued at it many weeks, growing more
ardent every day. But Vaga wished to return to Toscanella, and therefore
made him known, as one belonging to himself, to many commonplace
painters, and also recommended him to all the friends that he had there,
to the end that they might assist and favour him in his absence; from
which circumstance he was always called from that day onward Perino del
Vaga.

[Illustration: THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA

(_After the fresco by =Perino del Vaga=. Rome: The Vatican, Loggia_)

_Anderson_]

Thus left in Rome, and seeing the ancient works of sculpture and the
marvellous masses of buildings, reduced for the most part to ruins,
Perino stood lost in admiration at the greatness of the many renowned
and illustrious men who had executed those works. And so, becoming ever
more and more aflame with love of art, he burned unceasingly to
attain to a height not too far distant from those masters, in order
to win fame and profit for himself with his works, even as had been done
by those at whom he marvelled as he beheld their beautiful creations.
And while he contemplated their greatness and the depths of his own
lowliness and poverty, reflecting that he possessed nothing save the
desire to rise to their height, and that, having no one who might
maintain him and provide him with the means to live, he was forced, if
he wished to remain alive, to labour at work for those ordinary shops,
now with one painter and now with another, after the manner of the
day-labourers in the fields, a mode of life which so hindered his
studies, he felt infinite grief and pain in his heart at not being able
to make as soon as he would have liked that proficience to which his
mind, his will, and his necessities were urging him. He made the
resolve, therefore, to divide his time equally, working half the week at
day work, and during the other half devoting his attention to design;
and to this second half he added all the feast-days, together with a
great part of the nights, thus stealing time from time itself, in order
to become famous and to escape from the hands of others so far a