that his brother might cause him to study letters, but Taddeo considering his abilities better suited for painting, as has been shown to be the truth, by the admirable progress wliich this Eederigo has made,[1]—Taddeo, I say, after he had made the child acquire the first principles of learning, then set him to study design, furnishing him meanwhile with better assistance and more ample support than he had himself enjoyed.
Taddeo was meanwhile to paint four Stories behind the High Altar in the Church of Sant’ Ambrosio of the Milanesi; they are in fresco of no great size, represent events from the Life of that Saint, and are accompanied by a frieze of Termini, these last consisting of Boys and Girls.[2] Immediately after the completion of this work, which was an exceedingly good one, he commenced the decoration of a façade beside Santa Lucia della Tinta, which is near the Orso; this he covered with stories from the Life of Alexander the Great, beginning with his birth, and exhibiting, in five stories, the most remarkable events of his career; this work was very highly commended, although it had to endure comparison with one from the hand of Polidoro, which was close beside it.[3]
At that time Guidobaldo Duke of Urbino, having heard the fame of this youth, who was his vassal, and desiring to bring the Chapel of the Cathedral of Urbino, of which the ceiling had been painted by Battista Franco, as we have said, to a conclusion, invited his said vassal to Urbino; then the latter, leaving Federigo with persons in Rome who were charged to be watchful over his progress, and doing as much for another of his brothers, whom he placed with some friends who were goldsmiths, repaired to Urbino, and was there received with much favour by the Duke, who instantly laid before him the works which he wished him to design for other places as well as for the Chapel abovenamed. But Guidobaldo, as Captain-general of the Venetian
- ↑ Vasari never speaks of this artist but with his unvarying impartiality, although Federigo had conceived an envious hatred of Vasari, which sufficiently appears in the bitter sarcasms appended by him, in the form of marginal notes to the second edition of our author’s book.
- ↑ This work also has been destroyed in the various reparations of the church.
- ↑ These works also have perished by the injuries of time and the weather.
