When these works were made known to the king, they pleased him so greatly that he became most favourably disposed towards Rosso, and no long time had elapsed before his Majesty presented the painter with a Canonicate in the Holy Chapel of the Madonna of Paris,[1] with other revenues and marks of kindness, insomuch that Rosso lived in the fashion of a nobleman with a large number of servants and horses, giving fine banquets, and showing all manner of courtesies to his friends and acquaintance, but more especially to the Italian strangers who chanced to arrive there.[2]
After the completion of these works. Rosso adorned another hall which is called the Pavilion,[3] because it is in the form of a tent, and is over the apartments of the first floor, being above all the others composing that part of the building. In this apartment Rosso lavished a profusion of rich and varied ornaments in stucco from the floor even to the summit, figures in full relief namely, placed at equal distances, with children, festoons, and various kinds of animals. In the different compartments of the walls, also, are seated figures in fresco, and that in such vast numbers[4] that all the gods and goddesses of the old Gentiles may there
- ↑ Bottari observes that the Canonicates presented by the king of France, were not, as Vasari supposes, in the Church of Notre Dame, which disposes of its own Canonicates, but in the Church of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem. But what the learned and very pious churchman, Bottari, does not remark, is the singular disposition here niade of church property and preferment.
- ↑ Cellini, in his autobiography, describes himself as by no means satisfied with his own reception by Rosso, when he visited the latter in Paris.
- ↑ The apartment here described has been altered to make way for a staircase, on and about which, according to Bottari, the figures in stucco, and other decorations executed by Rosso, were afterwards placed.
- ↑ The Italian editors of our author affirm, and with reason, that the printers of the first edition must have omitted certain words belonging to this passage, thereby leaving the sense imperfect. Piacenza, in his additions to Baldinucci, has rectified the passage in the following manner: “in each compartment is a seated figure in fresco, with other figures, in such vast numbers that all the gods and goddesses,” &c., &c.
in the portico called Porte Dorfee. They were restored by the painter Picot, by order of the late King Louis Philippe, and present mythological representations: Aurora and Cephalus, the Battle with the Titans, Diana and Endymion, the Argonautic Expedition, Tithon and Axirora, and Paris wounded by Pyrrhus. There are two other paintings; Hercules and Omphale namely, with the same hero between Pleasure and Virtue, but these have been taken from old copper-plates by M. Picot, and are entirely new.—Ibid.
