Pope Gregory
XIII. in the Pauline chapel. While proceeding with his work, however, he
fell out with some of the Pope's officers; and conceiving himself
treated with indignity, he painted an allegorical picture of Calumny,
introducing the portraits of all those individuals who had offended him,
decorated with asses' ears. This he caused to be exhibited publicly over
the gate of St. Luke's church, on the festival day of that Saint. His
enemies, upon this, made such complaints that he was forced to fly from
Rome, and passing into France, he visited Flanders and England. As soon
as the pontiff was appeased, he returned to Rome, and completed his work
in the Pauline chapel, fortunate in not losing his head as the price of
such a daring exploit.

ROYAL CRITICISM.

Federigo Zuccaro was invited to Madrid by Philip II. to execute some
frescos in the lower cloister of the Escurial, which, failing to give
satisfaction to his royal patron, were subsequently effaced, and their
place supplied by Pellegrino Tibaldi; the king nevertheless munificently
rewarded him. One day, as he was displaying a picture of the Nativity,
which he had painted for the great altar of the Escurial, for the
inspection of the monarch, he said, "Sire, you now behold all that art
can execute; beyond this which I have done, the powers of painting
cannot go." The king was silent for some time; his countenance betrayed
neither approbation nor contempt; at last, preserving the same
indifference, he quietly asked the painter what _those things_ were in
the basket of one of the shepherds in the act of running? He replied
they were eggs. "It is well then, that he did not break them," said the
king, as he turned on his way--a just rebuke for such fulsome
self-adulation.

PIETRO DA CORTONA.

The name of this illustrious painter and architect was Berrettini, and
he was born at Cortona, near Florence, in 1596. At the age of fourteen
he went to Rome, where he studied the works of Raffaelle and Caravaggio
with the greatest assiduity. It is said that at first he betrayed but
little talent for painting, but his genius burst forth suddenly, to the
astonishment of those companions who had laughed at his incapacity; this
doubtless was owing to his previous thorough course of study. While yet
young, he painted two pictures for the Cardinal Sacchetti, representing
the Rape of the Sabines, and a Battle of Alexander, which gained him so
much celebrity that Pope