rable accuracy in the tenth year of his age, the father then took him into his own charge, and began to teach him the principles of design. But Ottaviano soon perceived that his son was endowed with a genius of no common order, and might very probably become a much better artist than he believed himself to be; he placed him therefore with a certain Pompeo of Fano, his intimate friend, but a very ordinary painter, whose works as well as manners pleased the young Taddeo so little, that he left him, and returned to Sant’ Agnolo, where he assisted his father (as he did also in other places) to the utmost of his power.
Increasing in judgment, however, as he advanced in years, Taddeo perceived that he could acquire but little under the discipline of his father, whom he also found that he could but slightly assist (although being charged with a family of seven boys and a girl, he much needed help) with the trifling amount of knowledge which he then possessed; he therefore determined to set off for Rome. This he did all alone at the age of fourteen, but being in the first instance known to no one, and not knowing any one himself, he suffered no little discomfort; nay, he seems to have been treated far from well by such few acquaintances as he did make. In this strait he applied to Francesco, called Sant’ Agnolo, who was then working for a daily payment at grottesche for Perino del Vaga, and whom Taddeo approached with all humility, entreating him, since he was a kinsman, to be be pleased to give him aid.
What he desired was, however, not done. On the contrary, Francesco, as kinsmen sometimes will do, not only refused to aid him by word or deed, but even reprehended and repulsed him harshly. Notwithstanding all this, the poor youth did not lose courage, nor did he waver in his purpose, but supported himself, or rather, starved on[1] during many months in Rome, by hiring himself to grind colours, now in one workshop, and now in another, for miserable wages, andnota
- ↑ The scenes from the Life of Taddeo, in the drawings of his brother Federigo, very touchingly set forth the grievous circumstances of his life at this period. In one of these we find him drawing from the ancient statues of Rome by moonlight; in another, overcome by home-sickness, by weariness of heart, and by the burning heat of the sun, he has sunk in sleep on the edge of a river, and awaking in a state of delirium, he fills his empty wallet with the pebbles of the shore, which he believes to be pcdntings of Raphael, and which he carries joyfully away upon his back.
