On the completion of these labours Baldassare returned to Home, where he contracted a most intimate friendship with Agostino Chigi of Siena, who received him to his intimacy not only because Baldassare considered himself a Sienese, but also because Agostino was by nature the friend of all distinguished men. With the assistance of such a man as Agostino Chigi, Baldassare found means to afford himself leisure for remaining during some time in Rome, occupied solely with the study and examination of the antiquities, but more particularly of those relating to architecture. In this vocation, emulous of Bramante, Baldassare made extraordinary progress in a very short time, which was afterwards, as we shall relate in due course, the cause of very great honour as well as profit to him: he gave considerable attention to the study of perspective also, and became so highly distinguished by his attainments therein, that very few who have laboured in our times can be named as his equals; the effect of this acquirement may be clearly perceived in all his works.
Pope Julius II. meanwhile, having built a corridor to his palace, with an aviary almost at the level of the roof, Baldassare was commissioned to depict all the months of the year therein; with the occupations proper to each month throughout the year: in this series of paintings, which is in chiaro-scuro, we have innumerable edifices, theatres, amphitheatres, palaces, and other buildings, all showing admirable invention, and each occupying an appropriate position in the work.[1] Baldassare painted several apartments in the palace of San Giorgio, for the Cardinal Raffaello Riario, Bishop of Ostia; this he did in company with other painters. On a façade which is opposite to the palace of Messer Ulisse da Fano, this master also executed various paintings; as he did on that of Messer Ulisse’s own house, whereon he delineated stories from the life of Ulysses, and by this work he greatly increased his name and reputation.
But still higher was the glory which he obtained for the model of a palace, prepared for Agostino Chigi,[2] and which he executed in the graceful manner we now see. This edifice
