Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/443

This page needs to be proofread.
giovan-antonio.
435

Sacchi, taken from the life, is to be seen in this picture, which had been undertaken by her command, and at her cost.

Paolo had set his heart on becoming great and renowned; to this end he subjected himself to immoderate labours, and, becoming sick, died while yet in his youth, and when he had but attained the age of thirty-one,[1] departing at the moment when he was beginning to afford evidence of his power, and to show what might be hoped from his endeavours at a riper age. It is, indeed, certain, that if fortune had not opposed her adverse influence to the activity of Paolo, he would without doubt have attained to the highest honours and the best position that could be desired by the painter. His loss was therefore deeply regretted, and not by his friends alone, but by all men of distinction, nay, by every one who knew' him; the more so, as he was a young man of blameless life and untainted by the reproach of vice. He was laid to rest in the church of San Polo, having rendered himself immortal by the admirable works which he left behind him.

Stefano Veronese,[2] an excellent painter of his time, as we have before said, had a brother who was called Giovan-Antonio,[3] but who never became anything beyond a very common-place painter, although he acquired his art from the above-named Stefano; yet that he possessed nothing to distinguish him is apparent in his works, of which there is no need to make further mention. This Giovanni was the father of a son who was in like manner a painter of commonplace subjects, and was named Jacopo. To this Jacopo were born two sons, the one called Giovanni Maria, and surnamed Falconetto, whose life we are now about to write, and the other named Giovan-Antonio; which last, devoting himself likewise to painting, performed numerous works at Roveredo, a place of considerable importance in the neighbourhood of Trent, with not a few pictures in Verona, w^hich are dispersed about among the dwellings of the citizens. He painted many pictures also in the Valley of the Adige above Verona, and in Sacco, which is opposite to Roveredo, he produced a picture of San Niccolo, with many animals. Other works

  1. In the year 1522.
  2. Or Stefano del Zevio, already mentioned more than once.
  3. Dal Pozzo calls this brother of Stefano, Giovan-Maria.