Bishop Giovan Matteo Giberti,[1] who caused these pictures to be executed, and who was an intimate friend, as we have said, of Giulio Romano.
No long time after having completed this work, Francesco adorned the fa9ade of the house which the Manuelli family had erected on the pier of the Ponte Nuovo, with that of the Doctor Torello Saraina, who wrote the above-mentioned book of the Antiquities of Verona. In Friuli, Francesco painted, also in fresco, the principal chapel of the Abbey of Rosazzo, which he did for the Bishop Giovan Matteo, who held that abbey in commendam, and by whom, as a truly religious and excellent Signor, the edifice was reconstructed, seeing that it had been wickedly suffered to fall into ruin, as almost all of these livings are found to be, by those who had previously held them in commendam, and who had thought of nothing but drawing a revenue from them, without having the heart to spend the smallest coin thereof in the service of God and the church.
Il Moro afterwards painted many pictures in oil, both at Verona and in Venice; and for the church of Santa Maria-in-Organo, in the first-named city, he painted those figures in fresco which are on the principal front,[2] those of the Angels Michael and Raphael excepted, which are by the hand of Paolo Cavazzuola. Francesco also painted the altarpiece for the chapel, but this is in oil, and here, in the figure of San Jacopo, he has placed the portrait of Messer Jacopo Fontani, at whose cost the work was executed; there are besides Our Lady and other very beautiful figures in this painting, above which, and in a large semicircle occupying the entire width of the chapel, is the Transfiguration of Our Lord, with the Apostles beneath, also by the hand of Francesco; these are considered to be the best figures ever produced by that master. For the chapel of the Bombardieri, in the church of Sant’ Eufemia, he painted a picture representing Santa Barbara appearing in the heavens; beneath is Sant’ Antonio; he is standing with the hand placed on
- ↑ These are the paintings before-mentioned,as refused by Giovan Francesco Caroto. They are still in good preservation.
- ↑ Persico, in his Descrizione di Verona, speaks only of some half-length figures in fresco, as painted by T1 Moro in this church. They are in eight compartments, between the transept and the apsis.
