site on the
Campo Marzio, and built there a large and very commodious house, and
then commissioned Taddeo to paint the facade in chiaroscuro; which
Taddeo executed there three stories of Mercury, the Messenger of the
Gods, which were very beautiful, and the rest he caused to be painted by
others after designs by his own hand. Meanwhile M. Jacopo Mattei, having
caused a chapel to be built in the Church of the Consolazione below the
Campidoglio, allotted it to Taddeo to paint, knowing already how able he
was; and he willingly undertook to do it, and for a small price, in
order to show to certain persons, who went about saying that he could do
nothing save facades and other works in chiaroscuro, that he could also
paint in colour. Having then set his hand to that work, Taddeo would
only touch it when he was in the mood and vein to do well, spending the
rest of his time on works that did not weigh upon him so much in the
matter of honour; and so he executed it at his leisure in four years. On
the vaulting he painted in fresco four scenes of the Passion of Christ,
of no great size, with most beautiful fantasies, and all so well
executed in invention, design, and colouring, that he surpassed his own
self; which scenes are the Last Supper with the Apostles, the Washing of
Feet, the Prayer in the Garden, and Christ taken and kissed by Judas. On
one of the walls at the sides he painted in figures large as life Christ
Scourged at the Column, and on the other Pilate showing Him after the
scourging to the Jews, saying "Ecce Homo"; above this last, in an arch,
is the same Pilate washing his hands, and in the other arch, opposite to
that, Christ led before Annas. On the altar-wall he painted the same
Christ Crucified, and the Maries at the foot of the Cross, with Our Lady
in a swoon; on either side of her is a Prophet, and in the arch above
the ornament of stucco he painted two Sibyls; which four figures are
discoursing of the Passion of Christ. And on the vaulting, about certain
ornaments in stucco, are four half-length figures representing the Four
Evangelists, which are very beautiful. The whole work, which was
uncovered in the year 1556, when Taddeo was not more than twenty-six
years of age, was held, as it still is, to be extraordinary, and he was
judged by the craftsmen at that time to be an excellent painter.

That work finished, M. Mario Frangipane allotted to him his chapel in
the Church of S. Marcello, in which Taddeo made