astel Bolognese, a naked
shepherd and a country-girl who is offering him some pipes, that he
may play them, with a most beautiful landscape; which picture is now
at Faenza, in the house of the said Giovanni. He then executed for the
high-altar in the Church of the Friars Minors, called the Ca Grande, a
picture of Our Lady ascending into Heaven, and below her the twelve
Apostles, who are gazing upon her as she ascends; but of this work,
from its having been painted on cloth, and perhaps not well kept,
there is little to be seen. For the Chapel of the Pesari family, in
the same church, he painted in an altar-piece the Madonna with the
Child in her arms, a S. Peter and a S. George, and about them the
patrons of the work, kneeling and portrayed from life; among whom are
the Bishop of Paphos and his brother, then newly returned from the
victory which that Bishop won against the Turks. For the little Church
of S. Niccolo, in the same convent, he painted in an altar-piece S.
Nicholas, S. Francis, S. Catharine, and also a nude S. Sebastian,
portrayed from life and without any artifice that can be seen to have
been used to enhance the beauty of the limbs and trunk, there being
nothing there but what he saw in the work of nature, insomuch that it
all appears as if stamped from the life, so fleshlike it is and
natural; but for all that it is held to be beautiful, as is also very
lovely the Madonna with the Child in her arms at whom all those
figures are gazing. The subject of that picture was drawn on wood by
Tiziano himself, and then engraved by others and printed. For the
Church of S. Rocco, after the works described above, he painted a
picture of Christ with the Cross on His shoulder, and about His neck a
cord that is drawn by a Hebrew; and that figure, which many have
believed to be by the hand of Giorgione, is now the object of the
greatest devotion in Venice, and has received in alms more crowns than
Tiziano and Giorgione ever gained in all their lives. Then he was
invited to Rome by Bembo, whom he had already portrayed, and who was
at that time Secretary to Pope Leo X, to the end that he might see
Rome, Raffaello da Urbino, and others; but Tiziano delayed that visit
so long from one day to another, that Leo died, and Raffaello in 1520,
and after all he never went. For the Church of S. Maria Maggiore he
painted a picture with S. John the Baptist in the Desert among some
rocks, an Angel that appears as if alive, and a little p