change from one monastery to another, for the space of three years; but always doing something in his art. It was at this time that he completed a large Choral-book, with most delicate miniatures and beautiful borderings, among which was a Story of Our Saviour Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen in the Garden, and this was considered most singularly beautiful. Encouraged by success, Don Giulio next painted the Woman taken in Adultery; the group comprising many figures, of much larger size than his works usually exhibit, and being copied from a picture executed in those days by Tiziano Vecellio,[1] a most excellent painter.
Not long after the completion of these works, it chanced that Don Giulio, removing from one monastery to another, as is the manner of those Monks, or Friars, had the misfortune to break his leg; whereupon, being taken by the brotherhood, for his better attendance, to the Monastery of Candiano, he remained there for some time. But he did not recover, perhaps because, as is frequently the case among those Monks, he was treated badly by the Brotherhood as well as by the doctors.[2] The accident coming to the ears of Cardinal Grimani, by whom Don Giulio was much valued for his ability, that Prelate obtained permission from the Pope to take him into his own service, when our artist, throwing off the habit, and having had his leg cured, went to Perugia with the Cardinal, who was Legate in that city, where Don Giulio executed for him the works which follow: an Office of Our Lady, with four most beautiful Stories; an Epistolary, with three large Stories from the Life of St. Paul, one of which was soon afterwards sent into Spain; with a most exquisite Pieta, and a Crucifix, which came, after the death of Grimani, into the hands of Messer Giovanni Gaddi, Clerk of the Chamber.
These works made Don Giulio known at Rome as an able artist, and Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who has always assisted, favoured, and desired to have about him, distin-
- ↑ Vasari has not mentioned this picture in the Life of Titian, but there is one on the subject in question, in the Brera at Milan, which has been engraved by Anderloni as a work of Titian’s, but has usually been considered one of Palma Vecchio’s.
- ↑ The accomplished churchman Bottari will not have us believe this, and maintains that Don Clovio continued the friend of these Canons all his life, which may well be, even though our author were not far wrong, placable and good as the miniaturist is known to have been.
