tto took with him to Florence
when he became chapel-master in S. Giovanni; and at the present day the
sculptor Francesco da San Gallo has it in his house. About that time he
also painted for S. Giovanni Grisostomo at Venice an altar-piece with
some figures which incline so much to the manner of Giorgione, that they
have been sometimes held by people without much knowledge of the matters
of art to be by the hand of Giorgione himself. This altar-piece is very
beautiful, and executed with such a manner of colouring that it has
great relief.

The fame of the abilities of Sebastiano thus spreading abroad, Agostino
Chigi of Siena, a very rich merchant, who had many affairs in Venice,
hearing him much praised in Rome, sought to draw him to that city, being
attracted towards him because, besides his painting, he knew so well how
to play on the lute, and was sweet and pleasant in his conversation. Nor
was it very difficult to draw Sebastiano to Rome, since he knew how much
that place had always been the benefactress and common mother-city of
all beautiful intellects, and he went thither with no ordinary
willingness. Having therefore gone to Rome, Agostino set him to work,
and the first thing that he caused him to do was to paint the little
arches that are over the loggia which looks into the garden of
Agostino's palace in the Trastevere, where Baldassarre of Siena had
painted all the vaulting, on which little arches Sebastiano painted some
poetical compositions in the manner that he had brought from Venice,
which was very different from that which was followed in Rome by the
able painters of that day. After this work, Raffaello having executed a
story of Galatea in the same place, Sebastiano, at the desire of
Agostino, painted beside it a Polyphemus in fresco, in which, spurred by
rivalry with Baldassarre of Siena and then with Raffaello, he strove his
utmost to surpass himself, whatever may have been the result. He
likewise painted some works in oils, for which, from his having learned
from Giorgione a method of colouring of no little softness, he was held
in vast account at Rome.

[Illustration: FRA SEBASTIANO VINIZIANO DEL PIOMBO: PORTRAIT OF A LADY

(_Florence; Uffizi, 1123. Canvas_)]

While Sebastiano was executing these works in Rome, Raffaello da Urbino
had risen into such credit as a painter, that his friends and adherents
said that his pictures were more in accord with the rules of painting
than those of Michelagnol