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Mario Ballassi, a Florentine painter born in 1604, studied successively under Ligozzi, Roselli, and Passignano; he assisted the latter in the works he executed at Rome for Pope Urban XIII. His chief talent lay in copying the works of the great masters, which he did to admiration.
At Passignano and Torricella picturesque villages, chiefly occupied by fishermen, jut out into the water, but otherwise the reedy shore is perfectly desolate on this side, though beyond the lake convents and villages crown the hills which rise between us and the pale violet mountains beyond Montepulciano."
I recalled the shock of meeting legions, the clash of swords and bucklers, and the waving standards amid the dust of battle, while stood on the mountain amphitheatre, trembling and invisible, the protecting deities of Rome. "Far other scene is Thrasymene now!" We rode over the plain, passed through the dark old town of Passignano, built on a rocky point by the lake, and dashed along the shore.
The country was fertile, presenting, on each side of the road, vines trained on fig-trees; wheat-fields and olives, in greater abundance than any other product. On our right, with a considerable width of plain between, was the bending ridge of hills that shut in the Roman army, by its close approach to the lake at Passignano.
Farther onward, the space between the lake and hill grew still narrower, the road skirting along almost close to the water-side; and when we reached the town of Passignano there was but room enough for its dirty and ugly street to stretch along the shore.
The inn of Passignano promised little from its outward appearance; a tall, dark old house, with a stone staircase leading us up from one sombre story to another, into a brick-paved dining-room, with our sleeping-chambers on each side.
He founded many houses, S. Salvi among them, while his monks were to be found at Moscetta, Passignano, and elsewhere in Tuscany and Umbria; while his Order was the first to receive lay brothers who, while exempt from choir and silence, were employed in "external offices." It was in July 1073 that he fell sick at Passignano, and on the 12th of that month he died there.
Crowe and Cavalcaselle, op. cit. vol. i, 187. The Piazza di S. Croce, in which stands the great Franciscan church of Florence, is still almost as it was in the sixteenth century when the Palazzo del Borgo on the southern side was painted in fresco by the facile brush of Passignano; but whatever charm so old and storied a place might have had for us, for here Giuliano de' Medici fought in a tournament under the eyes of La Bella Simonetta, and here, too, the Giuoco del Calcio was played, it is altogether spoiled and ruined, not only by the dishonouring statue of Dante, which for some unexplained reason has here found a resting-place, but by the crude and staring façade of the church itself, a pretentious work of modern Italy, which lends to what was of old the gayest Piazza in the city, the very aspect of a cemetery.
The moon was a day or two past the full, just a little clipped on the edge, but gave light enough to show the lake and its nearer shores almost as distinctly as by day; and there being a ripple on the surface of the water, it made a sheen of silver over a wide space. May 30th. We started at six o'clock, and left the one ugly street of Passignano, before many of the beggars were awake.
There are numberless anecdotes written of this artist and his brother, and one of these shows he had a temper. The brothers were engaged in a monastery at Passignano painting a picture of the "Last Supper." While at work upon it, they lived in the house. The coarse fare did not suit Ghirlandajo, and one night he could endure it no longer.
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