singularly fanciful picture of a Hunt on a large piece of canvas, which covered the scene at the head of the Hall; this was in colours, but Eederigo also executed certain pictures in chiaro-scuro, all which gave infinite satisfaction. Having then proceeded from Florence to Sant’ Agnolo, for the purpose of revisiting his friends and relations, Federigo at length departed for Rome, where he arrived on the 16th of January. But he was not of any great use to Taddeo at that time, seeing that the death of Pope Pius IV. with that of the Cardinal Farnese, had interrupted the works in the Hall of Kings, as well as those of the Farnese Palace; wherefore Taddeo, who had finished another apartment at Caprarola, and almost completed the Chapel of San Marcello, was proceeding, but quite at his leisure, with the Assumption of Our Lady, and the Apostles who are standing around her bier.
In the meantime Taddeo had secured the commission for a Chapel in the Church of the Reformed Priests of Jesus, Avhich was at the Obelisk of San Mauro, to be painted in fresco by Federigo, and to this work the latter instantly addressed himself. The elder brother, meanwhile, feigning to be angry at Federigo’s long delay, appeared to be but little moved by his return, although he did in truth rejoice in it greatly, as was afterwards made clearly manifest. It was a vexatious annoyance to Taddeo, for example, to have the cares of a house on his shoulders, and this trouble Federigo had been accustomed to take wholly on himself; the return of the latter, therefore, relieving him as it did from inconveniences of that kind, left him free to give his attention with a quiet mind to his labours.
The friends of Taddeo were at that time earnestly advising him to marry, but he, accustomed to a life of freedom, and fearing, what .so m etimes happens, that together with the wife, he might bring a thousand cares and anxieties into his house, could never resolve on taking that counsel; nay, he now seemed to give himself up wholly to his works at the Trinità, and had not a thought but for the Cartoon which he was preparing for the principal façade, and the subject of which was the Ascent of Our Lady into Heaven.
Federigo was then painting a picture of San Piero in Prison, for the Signor Duke of Urbino[1] with another, repre-
- ↑ This is now in the Pitti Palace
