f the
wall-surface of that vaulting was allotted to Niccolo; and it was
proposed that he should be commissioned to paint the rest, if the first
part, which he had to do then, should please the men of the aforesaid
Company. Having therefore set his hand to this work with great
diligence, in two years Niccolo finished the half, but not more, of one
arch, on which he painted in fresco the Tiburtine Sibyl showing to the
Emperor Octavian the Virgin in Heaven with the Infant Jesus Christ in
her arms, and Octavian in reverent adoration. In the figure of Octavian
he portrayed the above-mentioned M. Giuliano Bacci, and his pupil
Domenico in a tall young man draped in red, and others of his friends in
other heads; and, in a word, he acquitted himself in this work in such a
manner that it did not displease the men of that Company and the other
men of that city. It is true, indeed, that everyone grew weary of seeing
him take so long and toil so much over executing his works; but
notwithstanding all this the rest would have been given to him to
finish, if that had not been prevented by the arrival in Arezzo of the
Florentine Rosso, a rare painter, to whom, after he had been put forward
by the Aretine painter Giovanni Antonio Lappoli and M. Giovanni
Pollastra, as has been related in another place, much favour was shown
and the rest of that work allotted. At which Niccolo felt such disdain,
that, if he had not taken a wife the year before and had a son by her,
so that he was settled in Arezzo, he would have departed straightway.
However, having finally become pacified, he executed an altar-piece for
the Church of Sargiano, a place two miles distant from Arezzo, where
there are Frati Zoccolanti; in which he painted the Assumption of Our
Lady into Heaven, with many little Angels supporting her, and S. Thomas
below receiving the Girdle, while all around are S. Francis, S. Louis,
S. John the Baptist, and S. Elizabeth, Queen of Hungary. In some of
these figures, and particularly in some of the little Angels, he
acquitted himself very well; and so also in the predella he painted some
scenes with little figures, which are passing good. He executed,
likewise, in the Convent of the Nuns of the Murate, who belong to the
same Order, in that city, a Dead Christ with the Maries, which is
wrought with a high finish for a picture in fresco. In the Abbey of S.
Fiore, a seat of Black Friars, behind the Crucifix that is placed on the
high-altar, he pain