sides of the chapel is the altar, and at the other the door.
And since there are going into this work innumerable statues in marble
and bronzes and a number of scenes in low-relief, it will prove worthy
of all these great Kings and of the excellence and genius of so rare a
craftsman as is this Abbot of S. Martin, who in his best years has
been most excellent and versatile in all things that pertain to our
arts, seeing that he has occupied himself in the service of his lords
not only in buildings, paintings, and stucco-work, but also in the
preparations for many festivals and masquerades, with most beautiful
and fantastic inventions.

He has been very liberal and most loving towards his friends and
relatives, and likewise towards the craftsmen who have served him. In
Bologna he has conferred many benefits on his relatives, and has
bought honourable dwellings for them and made them commodious and very
ornate, as is that wherein there now lives M. Antonio Anselmi, who has
for wife one of the nieces of our Abbot Primaticcio, who has also
given in marriage another niece, the sister of the first-named, with
honour and a good dowry. Primaticcio has always lived not like a
painter and craftsman, but like a nobleman, and, as I have said, he
has been very loving towards our craftsmen. When, as has been related,
he sent for Prospero Fontana, he despatched to him a good sum of
money, to the end that he might be able to make his way to France.
This sum, having fallen ill, Prospero was not able to pay back or
return by means of his works and labours; wherefore I, passing in the
year 1563 through Bologna, recommended Prospero to him in this matter,
and such was the courtesy of Primaticcio, that before I departed from
Bologna I saw a writing by the hand of the Abbot in which he made a
free gift to Prospero of all that sum of money which he had in hand
for that purpose. For which reasons the affection that he has won
among craftsmen is such, that they address and honour him as a father.

Now, to say something more of Prospero, I must record that he was
once employed with much credit to himself in Rome, by Pope Julius III,
at his Palace, at the Vigna Giulia, and at the Palace of the Campo
Marzio, which at that time belonged to Signor Balduino Monti, and now
belongs to the Lord Cardinal Ernando de' Medici, the son of Duke
Cosimo. In Bologna the same master has executed many works in oils and
in fresco, and in particular an altar-piece in