ther with some pictures that
serve to adorn it, and likewise the doors of the organ; which are all
pictures truly worthy of the highest praise. In the Hall of the Grand
Council he painted a large picture of Frederick Barbarossa presenting
himself to the Pope, with a good number of figures varied in their
costumes and vestments, all most beautiful and representing worthily
the Court of a Pope and an Emperor, and also a Venetian Senate, with
many noblemen and Senators of that Republic, portrayed from life. In
short, this work is such in its grandeur and design, and in the beauty
and variety of the attitudes, that it is rightly extolled by everyone.
After this scene, Paolino painted the ceilings of certain chambers,
which are used by that Council of Ten, with figures in oils, which are
much foreshortened and very rare.

In like manner, he painted in fresco the facade of the house of a
merchant, which was a very beautiful work, on the road from S.
Maurizio to S. Moise; but the wind from the sea is little by little
destroying it. For Camillo Trevisani, at Murano, he painted a loggia
and an apartment in fresco, which were much extolled. And in S.
Giorgio Maggiore at Venice, at the head of a large apartment, he
painted in oils the Marriage of Cana in Galilee, which was a
marvellous work for its grandeur, the number of figures, the variety
of costumes, and the invention; and, if I remember right, there are to
be seen in it more than one hundred and fifty heads, all varied and
executed with great diligence.

The same Paolino was commissioned by the Procurators of S. Mark to
paint certain angular medallions that are in the ceiling of the Nicene
Library, which was left to the Signoria by Cardinal Bessarion, with a
vast treasure of Greek books. Now the above-named lords, when they had
the painting of that library begun, promised a prize of honour, in
addition to the ordinary payment, to him who should acquit himself
best in painting it; and the pictures were divided among the best
painters that there were at that time in Venice. When the work was
finished and the pictures painted had been very well considered, a
chain of gold was placed round the neck of Paolino, he being the man
who was judged to have done better than all the others. The picture
that gave him the victory and the prize of honour was that wherein he
painted Music, in which are depicted three very beautiful young women,
one of whom, the most beautiful, is playing a