being on their return, took their way by the Città di Castello, for the purpose of repairing the boundaries of the beforementioned garden of Vitelli, which were in a grievously ruinous state. To this place, then, Vasari took with him the above-named Cristofano, proposing that he, together with that Battista previously mentioned, should execute all the decorations and stories of a certain apartment, together with the friezes which were to be added in other chambers, and such sketches as it was the design of Vasari to prepare for the Loggia; all which these young artists, but more particularly Cristofano, completed to such perfection, that the most able and experienced master in the art would scarcely have done so much.[1] Nay, what is more, by the practice thus afforded to him, Cristofano profited to so great an extent, that having used the opportunity with much zeal and industry, he was found to have thereby attained to an extraordinary degree of facility both in drawing and colouring.
In the year 1536, the Emperor Charles V. came into Italy and to Florence, as we have related in other places, when there were magnificent solemnities prepared for his reception, as before described. On this occasion, the care of such decorations as were required for the Grate of San Pietro Gattolini was entrusted by Duke Alessandro to Vasari, as were also the works for that façade of San Felice in Piazza which looks on the end of the Via Maggio, and the ornaments erected over the Portal of Santa Maria del Fiore. Vasari was furthermore commanded to prepare a Standard of Cloth for the Citadel, the length of which was forty braccia, and its breadth fifteen, while in the gilding of the same there were employed some 50,000 leaves of gold. But this caused the Florentine artists and others to declare that Vasari was too partially favoured by the Duke Alessandro; wherefore, in the hope of bringing him to disgrace, as regarded his part in those preparations—certainly a very laborious, as well as important one—they so contrived matters that Giorgio could obtain the assistance of no stone-worker or other assistant, whether old or young, among all those who dwelt in Florence; nor was any one of them permitted to afford him help of any kind.
- ↑ These works are still to be seen in the Palazzo Vitelli, called Della Macchia. —Ed. Flor.832-8.
