St. Mark and St. John, the first entirely finished by Perino, and the last completed also, with the exception of the head and one arm, which are nude. Between these Evangelists are two children, the arms of which are thrown around a chandelier, and their figures, which must certainly have been made of the living flesh, serve as the decorations thereof; the Evangelists also are exceedingly beautiful, whether as regards the heads, figures, or draperies, as is every other eir* cumstance appertaining to those figures.[1]
While Perino was occupied with this work, he suffered frequent interruptions from sickness and other misfortunes, of daily occurrence to all who share this life; it is also affirmed that the men of the Company by whom he was commissioned, were in want of money, insomuch that the work was greatly delayed, and finally came that year of 1527, which brought the sack and ruin of Rome, when the city was given over to be plundered, many artists slain, and works of art in great numbers destroyed or carried away. Perino was in the midst of all these fearful disorders, he had a wife and a little daughter, and with the latter in his arms he long hurried about from one place to another in different parts of the city, in the hope of saving his child and himself, but having at length been miserably captured, he was compelled to pay so large a sum of money for his ransom, that he had well nigh lost his senses at the ruin which had befallen him, nay, even when the fury of the sack had at length abated, Perino found hinD self so grievously cast down with the miseries that he had endured and still feared to suffer, that all thought of his art was for the time abandoned; ultimately he did produce some pictures in water colour, and various fantasies for the Spanish soldiers, and having somewhat recovered himself, he contrived to live as others did, which was poorly enough. The only person who escaped in these tumults appeared to be that Baviera, in whose possession were the engravings of Raphael’s works, and who did not lose much at that time; wherefore, moved by the friendship which he entertained for Perino, and desiring to give him occupation, he commissioned that master to design the Transformations of the Grods, which lie then caused to be engraved in copper plate by Jacopo Caraglio, who was an excellent engraver of prints, and who
- ↑ These pictures are still in existence.
