chitect, who is now fifty-eight years of age,
was placed in his childhood and youth to learn the art of painting in
Bologna, but did not make much proficience, because he did not receive
good guidance at the beginning. And also, to tell the truth, he had by
nature much more inclination for architecture than for painting, as was
clearly manifest even at that time from his designs and from the few
works of painting that he executed, for there were always to be seen in
them pieces of architecture and perspective; and so strong and potent in
him was that inclination of nature, that he may be said to have learned
almost by himself, in a short time, both the first principles and also
the greatest difficulties, and that very well. Wherefore, almost before
he was known, various designs with most beautiful and imaginative
fantasies were seen to issue from his hand, executed for the most part
at the request of M. Francesco Guicciardini, at that time Governor of
Bologna, and for others of his friends; which designs were afterwards
put into execution in tinted woods inlaid after the manner of tarsia, by
Fra Damiano da Bergamo, of the Order of S. Domenico in Bologna. Vignuola
then went to Rome to work at painting, and to obtain from that art the
means to assist his poor family; and at first he was employed at the
Belvedere with Jacopo Melighini of Ferrara, the architect of Pope Paul
III, drawing some architectural designs for him. But afterwards, there
being in Rome at that time an academy of most noble lords and gentlemen
who occupied themselves in reading Vitruvius (among whom were M.
Marcello Cervini, who afterwards became Pope, Monsignor Maffei, M.
Alessandro Manzuoli, and others), Vignuola set himself in their service
to take complete measurements of all the antiquities of Rome, and to
execute certain works after their fancy; which circumstance was of the
greatest assistance to him both for learning and for profit. Meanwhile
Francesco Primaticcio, the Bolognese painter, of whom there will be an
account in another place, had arrived in Rome, and he made much use of
Vignuola in making moulds of a great part of the antiques in Rome, in
order to take those moulds into France, and then to cast from them
statues in bronze similar to the antiques; which work having been
despatched, Primaticcio, in going to France, took Vignuola with him, in
order to make use of him in matters of architecture and to have his
assistance in casting in bron