Father, at the foot two little boys who
are holding the vestments of Christ, in the angles the Annunciation, and
below these figures the semblance of a canvas superimposed, with a good
number of little nude figures of Angels, Demons, and Souls in Purgatory,
and with an inscription that runs--"In nomine Jesu omne genuflectatur."
That work, which was certainly held to be very good, won him much credit
and fame; indeed, it was the reason that the Frati de' Zoccoli, who have
their seat in that place, and who have charge of the Church of S. Giobbe
in Canareio, caused him to paint in the Chapel of the Foscari, in that
Church of S. Giobbe, a Madonna who is seated with the Child in her arms,
with a S. Mark on one side and a female Saint on the other, and in the
air some Angels who are scattering flowers. In S. Bartolommeo, at the
tomb of Cristofano Fuccheri, a German merchant, he executed a picture of
Abundance, Mercury, and Fame. For M. Antonio della Vecchia, a Venetian,
he painted in a picture with figures of the size of life and very
beautiful Christ crowned with Thorns, and about them some Pharisees, who
are mocking Him.

Meanwhile there had been built of masonry in the Palace of S. Marco,
after the design of Jacopo Sansovino, as will be related in the proper
place, the staircase that leads from the first floor upwards, and it had
been adorned with various designs in stucco by the sculptor Alessandro,
a disciple of Sansovino; and Battista painted very minute grotesques
over it all, and in certain larger spaces a good number of figures in
fresco, which have been extolled not a little by the craftsmen, and he
then decorated the ceiling of the vestibule of that staircase. Not long
afterwards, when, as has been related above, three pictures were given
to each of the best and most renowned painters of Venice to paint for
the Library of S. Marco, on the condition that he who should acquit
himself best in the judgment of those Magnificent Senators was to
receive, in addition to the usual payment, a chain of gold, Battista
executed in that place three scenes, with two Philosophers between the
windows, and acquitted himself very well, although he did not win the
prize of honour, as we said above.

After these works, having received from the Patriarch Grimani the
commission for a chapel in S. Francesco della Vigna, which is the first
on the left hand entering into the church, Battista set his hand to it
and began to make very rich