etter than any of the others that
were executed there by many painters about the same time. After the
death of Bonifazio, who left unfinished the above-mentioned stories of
Christ in the Duomo of Cremona, Giovanni Antonio Licinio of Pordenone,
called in Cremona De' Sacchi, finished those stories begun by Bonifazio,
painting there in fresco five scenes of the Passion of Christ with a
grand manner in the figures, bold colouring, and foreshortenings that
have vivacity and force; all which things taught the good method of
painting to the Cremonese, and not in fresco only, but likewise in oils,
for the reason that in the same Duomo, placed against a pilaster in the
centre of the church, is an altar-piece by the hand of Pordenone that is
very beautiful. Camillo, the son of Boccaccino, afterwards imitated that
manner in painting in fresco the principal chapel of S. Gismondo,
without the city, and in other works, and so succeeded much better than
his father had done. That Camillo, however, being slow and even dilatory
in his work, did not paint much save small things and works of little
importance.

But he who imitated most the good manners, and who profited most by the
competition of the above-named masters, was Bernardo de' Gatti, called
Il Soiaro, of whom mention has been made in speaking of Parma. Some say
that he was of Verzelli, and others of Cremona; but, wherever he may
have come from, he painted a very beautiful altar-piece for the
high-altar of S. Piero, a church of the Canons Regular, and in their
refectory the story of the miracle that Jesus Christ performed with the
five loaves and two fishes, satisfying an infinite multitude, although
he retouched it so much "a secco," that it has since lost all its
beauty. That master also executed under a vault in S. Gismondo, without
Cremona, the Ascension of Jesus Christ into Heaven, which was a
pleasing work and very beautiful in colouring. In the Church of S. Maria
di Campagna at Piacenza, in competition with Pordenone and opposite to
the S. Augustine that has been mentioned, he painted in fresco a S.
George in armour and on horseback, who is killing the Serpent, with
spirit, movement, and excellent relief. That done, he was commissioned
to finish the tribune of that church, which Pordenone had left
unfinished, wherein he painted in fresco all the life of the Madonna;
and although the Prophets and Sibyls that Pordenone executed there, with
some children, are beautiful to a m