to the more important works, he was continually required to produce designs for embroideries, carvings, and every other whimsey in the way of ornament, demanded by the caprices of Farnese, and of the other Cardinals and Signori. His time was in short incessantly occupied, and he was always surrounded by a crowd of painters, sculptors, masters in stucco, carvers of wood, gilders, embroiderers, seamsters, artists and workmen in a word, of every kind, by whom his mind was kept in a perpetual turmoil, insomuch that he never had an hour of repose. The only comfort and content that he found in this life was when he could occasionally sit down with some of his friends at the tavern, which was a place that Perino never failed to frequent, in whatsoever city he might be abiding; here then he would sit, that appearing to him to be the true beatitude of this world, the best happiness of life, and the only perfect repose from his labours. These last he was indeed incapable of supporting, worn out by his fatigues, and exhausted by the disorders of his life, the pleasures of the table and other indulgences, his constitution was ultimately destroyed, he was attacked by asthma which gradually consumed his strength until it terminated in consumption, and thus one evening, while speaking with a friend near his own house, an apoplectic affection suddenly seized him, and he fell dead to the ground, being then in the 47th year of his age.
This event caused much grief to many artists, who mourned the great loss which was without doubt thereby inflicted on the art of painting. It was in like manner much bewailed by Messer Joseffo Cincio, the physician of Madama, and son-in-law of Perino, from whom and from his wife the master received honourable sepulture in the chapel of St. Joseph, in the Rotonda at Rome, where the following epitaph was inscribed to his memory:—
Perino Bonaccursio Vagae Florentine, qui ingenio et arte singulari egregios cum pictores permultos tum plastas facile omnes superavit, Catherina Perini[1] coniugi, Lavinia Bonaccursia parenti, Josephus Cincius
- ↑ This must be Caterina Fermi, since the wife of Perino was sister to Giovan-Francesco Penni, called Il Fattore, as we have read in a previous page. See ante, p. 100.
