p of
Verona, commissioned Giulio, who was his very familiar friend, to make
the design for some rooms that were built of brick near the gate of the
Papal Palace, looking out upon the Piazza of S. Pietro, and serving for
the accommodation of the trumpeters who blow their trumpets when the
Cardinals go to the Consistory, with a most commodious flight of steps,
which can be ascended on horseback as well as on foot. For the same M.
Giovan Matteo he painted an altar-piece of the Stoning of S. Stephen,
which M. Giovan Matteo sent to a benefice of his own, called S. Stefano,
in Genoa. In this altar-piece, which is most beautiful in invention,
grace, and composition, the young Saul may be seen seated on the
garments of S. Stephen while the Jews are stoning him; and, in a word,
Giulio never painted a more beautiful work than this, so fierce are the
attitudes of the persecutors and so well expressed the patience of
Stephen, who appears to be truly seeing Jesus Christ on the right hand
of the Father in the Heaven, which is painted divinely well. This work,
together with the benefice, M. Giovan Matteo gave to the Monks of Monte
Oliveto, who have turned the place into a monastery.

The same Giulio executed at the commission of the German Jacob Fugger,
for a chapel that is in S. Maria de Anima at Rome, a most lovely
altar-piece in oils, in which are the Madonna, S. Anne, S. Joseph, S.
James, S. John as a little boy kneeling, and S. Mark the Evangelist with
a lion at his feet, which is lying down with a book, its hair curving in
accordance with its position, which was a beautiful consideration, and
difficult to execute; not to mention that the same lion has short wings
on its shoulders, with feathers so soft and plumy, that it seems almost
incredible that the hand of a craftsman could have been able to imitate
nature so closely. Besides this, he painted there a building that curves
in a circular form after the manner of a theatre, with some statues so
beautiful and so well placed that there is nothing better to be seen.
Among other figures there is a woman who is spinning and gazing at a hen
with some chickens, than which nothing could be more natural; and above
Our Lady are some little boys, very graceful and well painted, who are
upholding a canopy. And if this picture, also, had not been so heavily
loaded with black, by reason of which it has become very dark, it would
certainly have been much better; but this blackness has brought