master--in that
field. Near this he adorned four chambers, the ceilings of which are all
wrought in stucco, and distributed among them, in fresco, are the most
beautiful fables from Ovid, which have all the appearance of reality,
nor could any one imagine the beauty, the abundance, the variety, and
the great numbers of the little figures, animals, foliage, and
grotesques that are in them, all executed with lively invention. Beside
the other hall, likewise, he adorned four more chambers, but only
directing the work, which was carried out by his assistants, although he
gave them the designs both of the stucco-decorations and of the scenes,
figures, and grotesques, upon which a vast number of them worked, some
little and some much; such as Luzio Romano, who did much work in stucco
there and many grotesques, and a number of Lombards. Let it suffice to
say that there is no room there that has not something by his hand and
is not full of ornaments, even to the space below the vaulting, with
various compositions full of children, bizarre masks, and animals, which
all defies description; not to mention that the little studies, the
antechambers, the closets, and all other parts of the palace, are
painted and made beautiful. From the palace one passes into the garden
and into a low building, which has the most ornate decorations in all
the rooms, even below the ceilings, and so also the halls, chambers,
and anterooms, all adorned by the same hand. In this work Pordenone
also took a part, as I said in his Life, and likewise Domenico Beccafumi
of Siena, a very rare painter, who showed that he was not inferior to
any of the others, although the works by his hand that are in Siena are
the most excellent among the vast number that he painted.

But to return to the works that Perino executed after those that he did
in the Palace of the Prince; he executed a frieze in a room in the house
of Giannetin Doria, containing most beautiful women, and he did many
works for various gentlemen throughout the city, both in fresco and in
oil-colours. He painted a most beautiful altar-piece, very finely
designed, for S. Francesco, and another for a church called S. Maria "de
Consolatione," at the commission of a gentleman of the house of
Baciadonne: in which picture he painted the Nativity of Christ, a work
that is much extolled, but it was placed in a position so dark, that, by
reason of the light not being good enough, one is not able to recognize