y excellent craftsmen and men
of fine genius, as has been said above, for, besides one Cristofano
Castelli, who painted a very beautiful altar-piece for the Duomo in the
year 1499, and Francesco Mazzuoli, whose Life has been written, there
have been many other able men in that city. Mazzuoli, as has been
related, executed certain works in the Madonna della Steccata, but left
that undertaking unfinished at his death, and Giulio Romano, having made
a coloured design on paper, which may be seen in that place by everyone,
directed that a certain Michelagnolo Anselmi, a Sienese by origin, but a
citizen of Parma by adoption, being a good painter, should carry that
cartoon into execution, wherein is the Coronation of Our Lady. This he
did excellently well, in truth, so that he well deserved that there
should be allotted to him a great niche--one of four very large niches
that are in that temple--opposite to that in which he had executed the
above-mentioned work after the design of Giulio. Whereupon, setting his
hand to this, he carried well on towards completion there the Adoration
of the Magi, with a good number of beautiful figures, making on the flat
arch, as was related before in the Life of Mazzuoli, the Wise Virgins
and the design of copper rosettes; but, when about a third of that work
remained for him to do, he died, and so it was finished by Bernardo
Soiaro of Cremona, as we shall relate in a short time. By the hand of
that Michelagnolo is the Chapel of the Conception in S. Francesco, in
the same city; and a Celestial Glory in the Chapel of the Cross in S.
Pier Martire.

Girolamo Mazzuoli, the cousin of Francesco, as has been told, continuing
the work in that Church of the Madonna, left unfinished by his kinsman,
painted an arch with the Wise Virgins and adorned it with rosettes.
Then, in the recess at the end, opposite to the principal door, he
painted the Holy Spirit descending in Tongues of Fire on the Apostles,
and in the last of the flat arches the Nativity of Jesus Christ, which,
although not yet uncovered, he has shown to us this year of 1566, to our
great pleasure, since it is a truly beautiful example of work in
fresco. The great central tribune of the same Madonna della Steccata,
which is being painted by Bernardo Soiaro, the painter of Cremona, will
also be, when finished, a rare work, and able to compare with the others
that are in that place. But of all these it cannot be said that the
cause has been any