tiano to Rome; nay, knowing how helpful and favourable that city, as the common country of all distinguished men, had ever proved herself towards such, he went thither more than willingly. Having arrived in Rome accordingly, Agostino set him instantly to work, and the first thing which he did was to paint the small arches above the Loggia, which looks into the garden of Agostino’s palace in the Trastevere, where the whole of the vaulting had been decorated by Baldassare of Siena. In these arches, Sebastiano painted many poesies,[1] or fanciful subjects, in the manner which he had brought with him from Venice, and which were very different from the works usually produced in Rome by the distinguished painters of that time.
After this work, Raffaello having executed a story of Galatea in that place, Agostino desired that Sebastiano should paint a Polyphemus in fresco beside it:[2] and here, impelled by a spirit of rivalry with Baldassare of Siena, and afterwards with Raphael, he did his very utmost to distinguish himself. He likewise executed certain works in oil, and of these, seeing that he had obtained from Giorgione a certain mode of colouring which was tolerably soft, much account was made at Rome. While Sebastiano was thus producing these pictures in Rome, Raffaello da Urbino had risen into great credit as a painter, and his friends and adherents maintained that his works were more strictly in accordance with the rules of art than those of Michael Agnolo, affirming that they were graceful in colouring, of beautiful invention, admirable in expression, and of characteristic design; while those of Michael Agnolo, it was averred, had none of these qualities with the exception of the design. For these reasons, Raphael was judged by those who thus opined, to be fully equal, if not superior, to Michelagnolo in painting generally, and was considered by the same to be decidedly superior to him as regarded colouring in particular. These ideas, promulgated by many
- ↑ As our author calls every work having an historical character, a story, so he calls those taken from the poets or works of pure fancy, a poesy. — Ed. Flor., 1832-8.
- ↑ The Polyphemus of Fra Sebastiano has perished, and another has been fabricated in its place by some painter who was but <£ one of a dozen.” —Botteri.
