ude S. Jerome, and a David who is
singing to a psaltery; and also two prophets, who, as it appears
from the scrolls that they have in their hands, are speaking about
the Conception. This work was brought from Cortona to Arezzo on the
shoulders of the men of that Company; and Luca, old as he was,
insisted on coming to set it in place, and partly also in order to
revisit his friends and relatives. And since he lodged in the house
of the Vasari, in which I then was, a little boy of eight years old,
I remember that the good old man, who was most gracious and
courteous, having heard from the master who was teaching me my first
letters, that I gave my attention to nothing in lesson-time save to
drawing figures, I remember, I say, that he turned to my father
Antonio and said to him: "Antonio, if you wish little Giorgio not to
become backward, by all means let him learn to draw, for, even were
he to devote himself to letters, design cannot be otherwise than
helpful, honourable, and advantageous to him, as it is to every
gentleman." Then, turning to me, who was standing in front of him,
he said: "Mind your lessons, little kinsman." He said many other
things about me, which I withhold, for the reason that I know that I
have failed by a great measure to justify the opinion which the good
old man had of me. And since he heard, as was true, that the blood
used to flow from my nose at that age in such quantities that this
left me sometimes half dead, with infinite lovingness he bound a
jasper round my neck with his own hand; and this memory of Luca will
stay for ever fixed in my mind. The said panel set in place, he
returned to Cortona, accompanied for a great part of the way by many
citizens, friends, and relatives, as was due to the excellence of
Luca, who always lived rather as a noble and a man of rank than as a
painter.

About the same time a palace had been built for Cardinal Silvio
Passerini of Cortona, half a mile beyond the city, by Benedetto
Caporali, a painter of Perugia, who, delighting in architecture, had
written a commentary on Vitruvius a short time before; and the said
Cardinal determined to have almost the whole of it painted.
Wherefore Benedetto, putting his hand to this with the aid of Maso
Papacello of Cortona (who was his disciple and had also learnt not a
little from Giulio Romano, as will be told), of Tommaso, and of
other disciples and lads, did not cease until he had painted it
almost all over in fresco. B