of the Chapel remaining to be painted, the Eathers sold the same to the Archbishop of Corfu at the death of the Cardinal, and without having any regard to what was just and reasonable in the matter; when the commission for the pictures still wanting was given by that Archbishop to Taddeo Zucchero. It may be true that, from respect to the Church and from other causes, it would have been well done to find means for completing the chapel, but the Fathers ought not to have consented that in the part already finished the Arms of the Cardinal should be removed for the purpose of substituting those of the Archbishop, seeing that these last might easily have been placed in some other position, without offering so manifest an injury to the respected memory of that excellent Cardinal Santi Quattro.
Finding that he had so many works on hand, Taddeo now daily urged the return of Federigo from Venice, where the latter, after having finished the Chapel of the Patriarch, was on the point of making an agreement to paint the principal faqade in the Hall of the Grand Council, wherein Antonio Veneziano had formerly laboured. But the rivalry and contentions, established on this occasion by the painters of Venice, prevented Federigo from receiving that commission; while at the same time those painters did not secure it for themselves, notwithstanding the favours which they had taken pains to seek, in the hope of obtaining it.
Meanwhile Taddeo, had a great wish to visit Florence, and see the numerous works which he understood to be there in progress for Duke Cosimo, more especially the commencement of the Great Hall, at which his friend Giorgio Vasari[1] was then labouring. Wherefore he gave out that he was going to Caprarola, to look after the work he was engaged in there; but on the Festival of San Giovanni he arrived at Florence in company with the young sculptor and architect, Tiberio Calsagni, who was a native of that city. Here, to say nothing of Florence itself, which pleased him greatly, Taddeo Zucchero was infinitely delighted with the works of the many excellent sculptors and painters to be found there, ancient as well as modern; he was so much interested moreover by the numerous undertakings at that time in progress,
- ↑ “Against this passage,” says Bottari, “Federigo has written ‛false friend and malignant detractor’; a description which applies admirably to himself.”
