Francesco II, Marquis of
Mantua, who found an extraordinary delight in painting, took him into
his own service; and in the year 1487 he gave him a house for his
habitation in Mantua, and assigned him an honourable provision. For
these benefits Francesco was not ungrateful, for he always served that
lord with supreme fidelity and lovingness; whence the Marquis came to
love and favour him more and more every day, insomuch that he could not
leave the city without having Francesco in his train, and was once heard
to say that Francesco was as dear to him as the State itself.

Francesco painted many works for that lord in his Palace of S.
Sebastiano at Mantua, and also in the Castello di Gonzaga and in the
beautiful Palace of Marmirolo without the city. In the latter Francesco
had finished painting in the year 1499, after a vast number of other
pictures, some triumphs and many portraits of gentlemen of the Court;
and on Christmas Eve, on which day he had finished those works, the
Marquis presented to him an estate of a hundred fields in the territory
of Mantua, at a place called La Marzotta, with a mansion, garden,
meadows, and other things of great beauty and convenience. He was most
excellent at taking portraits from life, and the Marquis caused him to
paint many portraits, of himself, of his sons, and of many other lords
of the house of Gonzaga, which were sent to France and Germany as
presents for various Princes. And many of these portraits are still in
Mantua, such as those of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa; of Doge
Barbarigo of Venice; of Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan; of
Massimiliano, also Duke of Milan, who died in France; of the Emperor
Maximilian; of Signor Ercole Gonzaga, who afterwards became a Cardinal;
of his brother, Duke Federigo (then a young man); of Signor Giovan
Francesco Gonzaga; of Messer Andrea Mantegna, the painter; and of many
others; of all which Francesco preserved copies drawn on paper in
chiaroscuro, which are now in the possession of his heirs at Mantua.

Above the pulpit of S. Francesco de' Zoccolanti, in the same city, is a
picture that he painted of S. Louis and S. Bernardino holding a large
circle that contains the name of Jesus; and in the refectory of those
friars there is a picture on canvas as large as the whole of the
head-wall, of the Saviour in the midst of the twelve Apostles, painted
in perspective and all very beautiful, and executed with many proofs of
consideration. Among t