could have laid down their lives, they would
have died with him. Happy was the union of nature and art which embodied
a spirit so noble in human form; and cruel was the envy and hatred of
his fate and fortune, which robbed him of life with so strange a death,
but shall never through all the ages rob him of his name. His obsequies
were performed with full solemnity, and he was given burial in the
Cathedral Church, lamented bitterly by all Messina, in the year 1543.

Great, indeed, is the obligation owed by craftsmen to Polidoro, in that
he enriched art with a great abundance of vestments, all different and
most strange, and of varied ornaments, and gave grace and adornment to
all his works, and likewise made figures of every sort, animals,
buildings, grotesques, and landscapes, all so beautiful, that since his
day whosoever has aimed at catholicity has imitated him. It is a
marvellous thing and a fearsome to see from the example of this master
the instability of Fortune and what she can bring to pass, causing men
to become excellent in some profession from whom something quite
different might have been expected, to the no small vexation of those
who have laboured in vain for many years at the same art. It is a
marvellous thing, I repeat, to see those same men, after much travailing
and striving, brought by that same Fortune to a miserable and most
unhappy end at the very moment when they were hoping to enjoy the fruits
of their labours; and that with calamities so monstrous and terrible,
that pity herself takes to flight, art is outraged, and benefits are
repaid with an extraordinary and incredible ingratitude. Wherefore, even
as painting may rejoice in the fruitful life of Polidoro, so could he
complain of Fortune, which at one time showed herself friendly to him,
only to bring him afterwards, when it was least expected, to a dreadful
death.

IL ROSSO

LIFE OF IL ROSSO

PAINTER OF FLORENCE

Men of account who apply themselves to the arts and pursue them with all
their powers are sometimes exalted and honoured beyond measure, at a
moment when it was least expected, before the eyes of all the world, as
may be seen clearly from the labours that Il Rosso, a painter of
Florence, devoted to the art of painting; for if these were not
acknowledged in Rome and Florence by those who could reward them, yet in
France he found one to recompense him for them, and that in such sort,
that his glory might have suffic