Giuliano was once relating to Bronzino the circumstance of his having seen a most beautiful woman, and after Bugiardini had extolled this lady to the skies, Bronzino inquired if he knew who she was; “No,” replied Giuliano, “but she is exquisitely beautiful; figure to yourself, in short, that she is a picture executed by my hand, and then you will have the truth, that will be enough.”
THE PAINTER, CRISTOFANO GHERARDI, CALLED DOCENO OF BORGO-A-SAN SEPOLCRO.
[born 1500—died 1556.]
Raffaello dal Colle,[1] of the Borgo-a -San Sepolcro, who was a disciple of Giulio Romano, and assisted him in the fresco works of the Hall of Constantine in the papal palace at Rome, as well as in painting the apartments of the T at Mantua—Raffaello, I say, on his return to his native place of the Borgo, undertook to paint the chapel of S.S. Gilio and Arcanio, a work in which he depicted the Resurrection of Christ, and was very highly commended for the same; in this painting the artist imitated the manner of the above-mentioned Giulio, and of Raffaello da Urbino. He likewise executed another picture of an Assumption for the Barefooted Monks, whose abode is just without the Borgo, as he did also some other paintings for the Servite Monks of Citta di Castello.
But while occupied with these and other productions, Raffaello dal Colle was thus labouring in his native Borgo, and was acquiring riches as well as fame, there was in the same place a youth, then but sixteen years old, called Cristofano, and for his surname Doceno, the son of Guido Gherardi, a man of an honourable family resident in that town, and who, devoting himself by a natural inclination and with much profit to painting, drew and coloured so well and with so much grace, that it was a marvel.
- ↑ Lanzi, in his Storia Pittorica, so frequently cited, gives certain details of this artist, whose life Vasari has not written, although he has frequently alluded to him in the biographies of other artists. Notices of Raffaello dal Colle will also be found in a letter from the Advocate Mancini, which appeared in the Giornale Arcadico for May, 1826.
