These works, and some others of which I do not propose to make further mention, caused the name and fame of Timoteo to be bruited about, and he was very pressingly invited by Raphael to Rome; he proceeded thither accordingly with very good will, and was received with that friendliness and cordiality by which Raphael was distinguished, no less than by his excellence in art. In little more than a year from the time when he began to work with Raphael, Timoteo was found not only to have made great progress in painting, but also to have acquired large gains, seeing that within the above-named period he is known to have remitted considerable sums of money to his home. In the company of his master he worked in the church called “della Pace,” where he painted the Sybils of the lunettes to the right of the church, with his own hand, and those figures, so highly esteemed by all painters, are of his own invention also. There are persons still surviving who remember to have seen Timoteo working on these Sybils, and the fact that they were executed entirely by himself, is shown by the Cartoons, which are still in the possession of his successors.[1]
In the Scuola of Santa Caterina of Siena, this artist painted the Catafalco, or bier on which reposes the corpse, with all those works around it, which have been so much commended, and which were also entirely of his own invention. It is true that certain of the Sienese, from an overweening love of their native place, have attributed these productions to others;[2] but it is perfectly easy to perceive that they are the work of Timoteo, not only by the grace and beauty of the colouring, but also by the other memorials of himself which he has left in that most noble school of excellent painters.
Now Timoteo was very fortunately and even honourably placed in Rome, yet he could not, as so many do, support the separation from his native place, to which his return was besides perpetually entreated by his kinsmen; he was more-
- ↑ In the life of Raphael, Vasari speaks of these works as among the best of those executed by Raphael himself, (see ante, p. 24.) For certain details on this subject, see also Passavant, Rafael von Urbino, vol i, p. 192. vol. ii, p. 166.
- ↑ To Pacchierotto, according to Della Valle, (Lettere Sanesi, tom. iii. p. 181;) according to Giulio Mancini, (who nevertheless cites Della Valle,) to Baldassare Peruzzi, to whom Vasari himself also ascribes them in his life of Peruzzi, which follows.
