the first, and he
allotted to Domenico Beccafumi of Siena--after proving his worth from
some pictures that he painted round the sacristy, which are very
beautiful--an altar-piece which he executed in Pisa. This not giving as
much satisfaction as the first pictures, he caused the two last that
were wanting to be painted by Giorgio Vasari of Arezzo; and they were
placed at the two doors beside the corner-walls of the main facade of
the church. Of these, as well as of many other works, both large and
small, that are dispersed throughout Italy and various places abroad, it
does not become me to say more, and I will leave the right of free
judgment about them to all who have seen or may see them. The loss of
this work caused real vexation to Perino, he having already made the
designs for it, which gave promise that it would prove to be something
worthy of him, and likely to give that temple great fame over and above
that of its antiquities, and also to make Perino immortal.

During the many years of his sojourn in Genoa, although he drew both
profit and pleasure from that city, Perino had grown weary of it, as he
remembered Rome in the happy days of Leo. But although, during the
lifetime of Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, he had received letters
inviting him into his service, and he had been disposed to enter it, the
death of that lord brought it about that he hesitated to repatriate
himself. While matters stood thus, with his many friends urging his
return, himself desiring it infinitely more than any of them, and
several letters being exchanged, one morning, in the end, the fancy took
him, and without saying a word he set off from Pisa and made his way to
Rome. There, after making himself known to the most reverend Cardinal
Farnese, and then to Pope Paul, he stayed many months without doing
anything; first, because he was put off from one day to another, and
then because he was attacked by some infirmity in one of his arms, on
account of which he spent several hundreds of crowns, to say nothing of
the discomfort, before he could be cured of it. Wherefore, having no one
to maintain him, and being vexed by his cold welcome from the Court, he
was tempted many times to go away; but Molza and many other friends
exhorted him to have patience, telling him that Rome was no longer what
she had been, and that now she expected that a man should be exhausted
and weary of her before she would choose and cherish him as her own, and
parti