church of San Domenico, and this extended the renown and increased the credit of the artist. He was consequently soon afterwards appointed to execute certain works in Santa Maria del Monte, a monastery of Black Friars,[1] outside the city of Bologna, and likewise painted various pictures in fresco without the gate of San Mammolo. At the Casa di Mezzo,[2] moreover, which is situate on the same road, the Church was painted in fresco by his hand with stories from the Old Testament. Galasso always lived in a very creditable manner, and constantly proved himself courteous and obliging, which perhaps proceeded from his having been more accustomed to work in other and foreign cities than in his own. It is true that, from not being very regular in his mode of life, he did not attain to a much advanced age, departing in his fiftieth year, or thereabouts, to the life that has no end. He was honoured after his death by the following epitaph which was written by a friend.
Sum tanto studio naturam imitatus et arte
Dum pingo rerum quae creat illa parens;
Haec ut saepe quidem non picta putaverit a me,
A se crediderit sed generata magis.
At the same period, and also in Ferrara, lived Cosmè, by whom a chapel, painted for the church of San Domenico in that city, may still be seen. This artist designed better than he painted; nor, as far as I have been able to discover, did he execute many paintings.[3]
- ↑ See the Annotationa to the Vite of BarufFaldi,before cited.
- ↑ Now called the Madonna di Mezzaratta. The Florentine commentators affirm, that the painter called Galasso, who painted there, cannot be Galasso of Ferrara. The frescoes having been executed at too early a period (1390 and 1404) for him to have taken part in them.
- ↑ Malvasia, Felsina Pittrice, reproaches Vasari for not having said more of Galasso, and Cosmè, or Cosimo Tura; but “has not,” remarks Bottari, “himself supplied what he accuses Vasari of omitting.” The justification of the latter will be found in the Life of Vittore Scarpaccia which follows.
