arch. In one of
these is the Sacrifice of Abraham, in the second the Manna, and in the
third the Hebrews eating the Paschal Lamb on their departure from Egypt;
and the work was such that it gave an earnest of the success that he has
since achieved. He then painted in a picture for Francesco Sertini, who
sent it to France, a Dalilah who was cutting off the locks of Samson,
and in the distance Samson embracing the columns of the temple and
bringing it down upon the Philistines; which picture made Francesco
known as the most excellent of the young painters that were then in
Florence.

Not long afterwards the elder Cardinal Salviati having requested
Benvenuto della Volpaia, a master of clock-making, who was in Rome at
that time, to find for him a young painter who might live with him and
paint some pictures for his delight, Benvenuto proposed to him
Francesco, who was his friend, and whom he knew to be the most competent
of all the young painters of his acquaintance; which he did all the more
willingly because the Cardinal had promised that he would give the young
man every facility and all assistance to enable him to study. The
Cardinal, then, liking the young Francesco's qualities, said to
Benvenuto that he should send for him, and gave him money for that
purpose. And so, when Francesco had arrived in Rome, the Cardinal, being
pleased with his method of working, his ways, and his manners, ordained
that he should have rooms in the Borgo Vecchio, and four crowns a month,
with a place at the table of his gentlemen. The first works that
Francesco (to whom it appeared that he had been very fortunate) executed
for the Cardinal were a picture of Our Lady, which was held to be very
beautiful, and a canvas of a French nobleman who is running in chase of
a hind, which, flying from him, takes refuge in the Temple of Diana: of
which work I keep the design, drawn by his hand, in my book, in memory
of him. That canvas finished, the Cardinal caused him to portray in a
very beautiful picture of Our Lady a niece of his own, married to Signor
Cagnino Gonzaga, and likewise that lord himself.

Now, while Francesco was living in Rome, with no greater desire than to
see his friend Giorgio Vasari in that city, Fortune was favourable to
his wishes in that respect, and even more to Vasari. For, Cardinal
Ippolito having parted in great anger from Pope Clement for reasons that
were discussed at the time, but returning not long afterwards to Rome