cularly if he were pursuing the path of some fine art.

At this time M. Pietro de' Massimi bought a chapel in the Trinita, with
the vaulting and the lunettes painted and adorned with stucco, and the
altar-piece painted in oils, all by Giulio Romano and Perino's
brother-in-law, Giovan Francesco; and that gentleman was desirous to
have it finished. In the lunettes were four stories of S. Mary Magdalene
in fresco, and in the altar-piece in oils was Christ appearing to Mary
Magdalene in the form of a gardener; and M. Pietro first caused a gilt
frame of wood to be made for the altar-piece, which had a miserable one
of stucco, and then allotted the walls to Perino, who, having caused the
staging and the screen to be erected, set his hand to the work, and
after many months brought it to completion. He made a design of bizarre
and beautiful grotesques, partly in low-relief and partly painted; and
he executed two little scenes of no great size, one on each wall,
surrounding them with an ornament in stucco of great variety. In one
scene was the Pool of Bethesda, with all the cripples and sick persons,
and the Angel who comes to move the waters, the porticoes seen most
beautifully foreshortened in perspective, and the movements and
vestments of the priests, all painted with great grace and vivacity,
although the figures are not very large. In the other, he painted the
Raising of Lazarus after he had been dead four days, wherein he is seen
newly restored to life, and still marked by the pallor and fear of
death: and round him are many who are unswathing him, and not a few who
are marvelling, and others struck with awe, besides which the scene is
adorned with some little temples that recede into the distance, executed
with supreme lovingness, as are also the works in stucco all around.
There are likewise four very small scenes, two to each wall, and one on
either side of the larger scene; in one of which is the Centurion
beseeching Christ that He should heal with a word his son who is dying,
in another Christ driving the traders from the Temple, in a third the
Transfiguration, and in the last a similar scene. And on the projections
of the pilasters within the chapel he painted four figures in the guise
of Prophets, which, in their proportions, their excellence, and their
beauty, are as well executed and finished as they could well be. In a
word, the whole work was carried out with such diligence, and is so
delicate, that it resembles