arm,
also, did Girolamo suffer in matters of art from his having given too
much attention to amorous delights and to playing the lute at the time
when he might have been making progress in painting.

Having returned, then, to Bologna, he made a portrait, among others, of
Messer Onofrio Bartolini, a Florentine, who was then in that city for
his studies, and afterwards became Archbishop of Pisa; and that head,
which is now in the possession of the heirs of that Messer Noferi, is
very beautiful and in a manner full of grace. There was working in
Bologna at this time a certain Maestro Biagio, a painter, who,
perceiving that Girolamo was coming into good repute, began to be afraid
lest he might outstrip him and deprive him of all his profits.
Wherefore, seizing a good occasion, he established a friendship with
Girolamo, with the intention of hindering him in his work, and became
his intimate companion to such purpose, that they began to work in
company; and so they continued for a while. This friendship was harmful
to Girolamo, not only in the matter of his earnings, but likewise with
respect to art, for the reason that he followed in the footsteps of
Maestro Biagio (who worked by rule of thumb, and took everything from
the designs of one master or another), and he, also, put no more
diligence into his pictures.

Now in the monastery of S. Michele in Bosco, without Bologna, a certain
Fra Antonio, a monk of that convent, had painted a S. Sebastian of the
size of life, besides executing an altar-piece in oils for a convent of
the same Order of Monte Oliveto at Scaricalasino, and some figures in
fresco in the Chapel of S. Scholastica, in the garden of Monte Oliveto
Maggiore, and Abbot Ghiaccino, who had compelled him to stay that year
in Bologna, desired that he should paint the new sacristy of his church
there. But Fra Antonio, who did not feel it in him to do so great a
work, and perchance was not very willing to undergo such fatigue, as is
often the case with that kind of man, so contrived that the work was
allotted to Girolamo and Maestro Biagio, who painted it all in fresco.
In the compartments of the vaulting they executed some little boys and
Angels, and at the head, in large figures, the story of the
Transfiguration of Christ, availing themselves of the design of that
which Raffaello da Urbino painted for S. Pietro in Montorio at Rome; and
on the other walls they painted some Saints, in which, to be sure, there
is som