us master of wood-carving,
perspective, and inlaying, he was presented to the Warden. After they
had discoursed together on the subject of the works of the Duomo, Perino
was asked to paint an altar-piece for an ornament immediately within the
ordinary door of entrance, the ornamental frame being already finished,
and above that a scene of S. George slaying the Dragon and delivering
the King's Daughter. Perino therefore made a most beautiful design,
which included a row of children and other ornaments in fresco between
one chapel and the other, and niches with Prophets and scenes of various
kinds; and this design pleased the Warden. And so, having made the
cartoon for one of them, the first one, that opposite to the door
mentioned above, he began to execute it in colour, and finished six
children, which are very well painted. He was to have continued this
right round, which would have made a very rich and very beautiful
decoration; and the whole work together would have proved to be
something very handsome. But he was seized with a desire to return to
Genoa, where he had involved himself in love affairs and other
pleasures, to which he was inclined at certain times: and on his
departure he gave to the Nuns of S. Maffeo a little altar-piece that he
had painted for them in oils, which is now in their possession in the
convent. Then, having arrived in Genoa, he stayed there many months,
executing other works for the Prince.

His departure from Pisa displeased the Warden greatly, and even more the
circumstance that the work remained unfinished; wherefore he did not
cease to write to him every day that he should return, or to make
inquiries from Perino's wife, whom he had left in Pisa. But finally,
perceiving that the matter would never end, Perino neither answering nor
returning, he allotted the altar-piece of that chapel to Giovanni
Antonio Sogliani, who finished it and set it into its place. Not long
after this Perino returned to Pisa, and, seeing the work of Sogliani,
flew into a rage, and would on no account continue what he had begun,
saying that he did not choose that his pictures should serve as
ornaments for those of other masters; wherefore, so far as concerned
him, that work remained unfinished. Giovanni Antonio carried it on to
such purpose that he painted four altar-pieces: but these, at a later
date, appeared to Sebastiano della Seta, the new Warden, to be all in
the same manner, and somewhat less beautiful than