use to give the work to one whom he should
consider capable of painting some noble picture there. Wherefore
Antonio, who knew Perino to be the best of the young men who were in
Rome, allotted it to him. And he, setting his hand to the work, painted
there a Christ in the act of crowning the Madonna, and in the background
he made a Glory, with a choir of Seraphim and Angels clothed in light
and delicate draperies, who are scattering flowers, and other children
of great beauty and variety; and on the sides of the tabernacle he
painted Saints, S. Sebastian on one side and S. Anthony on the other.
This work was executed truly well, and was equal to the others by his
hand, which were always full of grace and charm.

A certain protonotary had erected a chapel of marble on four columns in
the Minerva, and, desiring to leave an altar-piece there in memory of
himself, even if it were but a small one, he came to an agreement with
Perino, whose fame he had heard, and commissioned him to paint it in
oils. And he chose that the subject should be the Deposition of Christ
from the Cross, which Perino set himself to execute with the greatest
possible zeal and diligence. In this picture he represented Him as
already laid upon the ground, surrounded by the Maries weeping over Him,
in whose gestures and attitudes he portrayed a melting pity and sorrow;
besides which there are the Nicodemuses[28] and other figures that are
much admired, all woeful and afflicted at seeing the sinless Christ
lying dead. But the figures that he painted most divinely were those of
the two Thieves, left fixed upon the crosses, which, besides appearing
to be real dead bodies, reveal a very good mastery over muscles and
nerves, which this occasion enabled him to display; wherefore, to the
eyes of him who beholds them, their limbs present themselves all drawn
in that violent death by the nerves, and the muscles by the nails and
cords. There is, in addition, a landscape wrapped in darkness,
counterfeited with much judgment and art. And if the inundation which
came upon Rome after the sack had not done damage to this work, covering
more than half of it, its excellence would be clearly seen; but the
water so softened the gesso, and caused the wood to swell in such sort,
that all the lower part that was soaked has peeled off too much for the
picture to give any pleasure; nay, it is a grief and a truly
heartrending sorrow to behold it, for it would certainly have been on