ght with all diligence to imitate Marc' Antonio, to engrave a lean
anatomical figure of his own, which holds a death's head in the hand,
and is seated on a serpent, while a swan is singing. This plate
succeeded so well, that the same Rosso afterwards caused engravings to
be made, on plates of considerable size, of some of the Labours of
Hercules: the Slaying of the Hydra, the Combat with Cerberus, the
Killing of Cacus, the Breaking of the Bull's Horns, the Battle with the
Centaurs, and the Centaur Nessus carrying off Deianira. And these plates
proved to be so beautiful and so well engraved, that the same Jacopo
executed, likewise after the design of Rosso, the story of the daughters
of Pierus, who, for seeking to contend with the Muses and to sing in
competition with them, were transformed into crows.

Baviera having then caused Rosso to draw twenty Gods in niches, with
their attributes, for a book, these were engraved by Gian Jacopo
Caraglio in a very beautiful and graceful manner; and also, not long
afterwards, their Transformations; but of these Rosso did not make the
drawings, save only of two, for he had a difference with Baviera, and
Baviera had ten of them executed by Perino del Vaga. The two by Rosso
were the Rape of Proserpine and the Transformation of Philyra into a
horse; and all were engraved with such diligence by Caraglio, that they
have always been prized. Caraglio afterwards began for Rosso the Rape of
the Sabines, which would have been a very rare work, but, the sack of
Rome supervening, it could not be finished, for Rosso went away, and the
plates were all lost. And although this work has since come into the
hands of the printers, it has proved a miserable failure, for the
engraving has been done by one who had no knowledge of the art, and
thought only of making money.

After this, Caraglio engraved for Francesco Parmigiano a plate of the
Marriage of Our Lady, and other works by the same master; and then
another plate for Tiziano Vecelli, which was very beautiful, of a
Nativity that Tiziano had formerly painted. This Gian Jacopo Caraglio,
after having executed many copper-plates, being an ingenious spirit,
gave his attention to engraving cameos and crystals, in which he became
no less excellent than he had been in the engraving of copper-plates.
And since then, having entered the service of the King of Poland, he has
occupied himself no longer with engraving on copper, now in his opinion
a mean art, b