besides by Paolo Veronese, and these last mentioned are the best. In the same monastery, and at the upper end of the Refectory, there is a picture in oil by the hand of a certain Fra Girolamo, a lay brother of San Domenico,[1] of whom there has before been mention made; there is a picture in oil, I say, which Fra Girolamo copied from that most beautiful Supper of Our Lord, painted in the Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, at Milan, by Leonardo da Vinci, and which he has imitated so exactly, that I was much amazed by the beauty and fidelity of the work. Now, I record this circumstance all the more willingly, because in the course of this year, 1566, I have seen the original of Leonardo at Milan, and found it in so grievous a state, that there is nothing more than a confused mass to be perceived; wherefore, the good faith of this worthy father is all the more valuable, since it will ever bear testimony in those parts to the art of Leonardo da Vinci. I have seen another picture by the hand of the same Frate, and this also is a copy from a painting by Leonardo. It is in the house of the Mint, at that same city of Milan, and there it was that I saw it. The subject is a Woman, who is smiling; and there is a figure oi San Giovanni Battista as a child, a very faithful and well executed copy.[2]
Cremona likewise, as we have remarked in the Life of Lorenzo di Credi and in other places, has at different times produced men who have performed very commendable works in painting, and we have already related[3] that when Boccaccino Boccacci was occupied with the apsis of the Cathedral of Cremona, and with the Stories from the life of Our Lady in other parts of the church, we have already recorded, I say, that there was then a good painter at Cremona called Bonifazio Bembi;[4] and that Altobello in like
- ↑ Fra Girolamo Monsignori.
- ↑ See the Life of Fra Giocondo, Liberate, and others, vol. iii. p. S58, et seq., of the present work, where mention is made of Fra Girolamo Monsignori. See also vol. v. and last of the present work.
- ↑ For the Life of Boccaccino see vol. iii. p. 154, et seq.
- ↑ The Count Vidoni, in his magnificent work. La Pittura Cremonese,
mona, but retiring to his native city, afterwards became the disciple of Girolamo Romanino, whose daughter he is said to have married.
