their shoulders from the first-named city to the last, when Luca also, old as he was, determined on repairing to Arezzo, to see the picture in its place, and also that he might visit his kindred and friends. During his stay in Arezzo his abode was in the “Casa Vasari,” where I was then a little child of eight years old, and I remember that the good old man, who was exceedingly courteous and agreeable, having heard from the master who was teaching me my first lessons, that I attended to nothing in school but drawing figures, turned round to Antonio, my father, and said to him, “Antonio, let little George (Georgino) by all means learn to draw, that he may not degenerate, for even though he should hereafter devote himself to learning, yet the knowledge of design, if not profitable, cannot fail to be honourable and advantageous.” Then turning to me, who was standing immediately before him, he said, “Study well, little kinsman.” He said many other things respecting me, which I refrain from repeating, because I know that I have been far from justifying the opinion which that good old man had of me. Being told that I suffered, as was the case at that age, so severely from bleeding at the nose, as sometimes to be left fainting and half dead thereby, he bound a jasper round my neck with his own hand, and with infinite tenderness: this recollection of Luca will never depart while I live.[1] Having placed his picture in its destined position, Luca returned to Cortona, being accompanied to a considerable distance on his road by many of the citizens, as well as by his friends and relations, and this was an honour well merited by the excellences and endowments of this master, who always lived rather in the manner of a noble and a gentleman than in that of a painter.
About the same time Silvio Passerini, Cardinal of Cortona, had built a palace about half a mile distant from the city, after the design of the painter, Benedetto Caporali of
- ↑ Bottari expresses surprise that Vasari has not mentioned a son of Luca Signorelli, who devoted himself to painting, but did not obtain high fame. He had a brother also, named Ventura, who was the father of Francesco Signorelli, of whom there is a short notice in Lanzi, who alludes in terms of commendation to a picture by his hand, painted for the Council-House of Cortona in 1520. —See History, &c., vol. i. p. 1G9.
