ine_)

_Anderson_]

FOOTNOTE:

[4] Diminutive of Lorenzo.

[5] Luini.

BALDASSARRE PERUZZI

LIFE OF BALDASSARRE PERUZZI

PAINTER AND ARCHITECT OF SIENA

Among all the gifts that Heaven distributes to mortals, none, in truth,
can or should be held in more account than talent, with calmness and
peace of soul, for the first makes us for ever immortal, and the second
blessed. He, then, who is endowed with these gifts, in addition to the
deep gratitude that he should feel towards God, must make himself known
among other men almost as a light amid darkness. And even so, in our own
times, did Baldassarre Peruzzi, a painter and architect of Siena, of
whom we can say with certainty that the modesty and goodness which were
revealed in him were no mean offshoots of that supreme serenity for
which the minds of all who are born in this world are ever sighing, and
that the works which he left to us are most honourable fruits of that
true excellence which was infused in him by Heaven.

Now, although I have called him above, Baldassarre of Siena, because he
was always known as a Sienese, I will not withhold that even as seven
cities contended for Homer, each claiming that he was her citizen, so
three most noble cities of Tuscany--Florence, Volterra, and Siena--have
each held that Baldassarre was her son. But, to tell the truth, each of
them has a share in him, seeing that Antonio Peruzzi, a noble citizen of
Florence, that city being harassed by civil war, went off, in the hope
of a quieter life, to Volterra; and after living some time there, in the
year 1482 he took a wife in that city, and in a few years had two
children, one a boy, called Baldassarre, and the other a girl, who
received the name of Virginia. Now it happened that war pursued this man
who sought nothing but peace and quiet, and that no long time afterwards
Volterra was sacked; whence Antonio was forced to fly to Siena, and to
live there in great poverty, having lost almost all that he had.

Meanwhile Baldassarre, having grown up, was for ever associating with
persons of ability, and particularly with goldsmiths and draughtsmen;
and thus, beginning to take pleasure in the arts, he devoted himself
heart and soul to drawing. And not long after, his father being now
dead, he applied himself to painting with such zeal, that in a very
short time he made marvellous progress therein, imitating living and
natural things as well as the works of the best