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In the S. Joseph and some Shepherds are many heads portrayed from life, such as Stagio Sassoli, a painter and the friend of Niccolò, and Papino della Pieve, his disciple, who, if he had not died when still young, would have done very great honour both to himself and to his country; and three Angels in the air who are singing are so well executed that they would be enough by themselves to demonstrate the talent of Niccolò and the patience with which he laboured at this work up to the very last.
Tiziano Vecelli was born in or about the year 1477 at Pieve di Cadore, a district of the southern Tyrol then belonging to the Republic of Venice, and still within the Italian frontier. An ancestor, Ser Guecello di Tommasro da Pozzale, had been elected Podesta of Cadore as far back as 1321. The name Tiziano would appear to have been a traditional one in the family.
The discussion about the Hall being then resumed, Giorgio told the Pope frankly that Francesco was the first and best painter in Rome, that his Holiness would do well to employ him, since no one could serve him better, and that, although Buonarroti and the Cardinal of Carpi favoured Daniello, they did so more from the motive of friendship, and perhaps out of animosity, than for any other reason. But to return to the altar-piece; Giorgio had no sooner left the Pope than he sent it to the house of Francesco, who afterwards had it taken to Arezzo, where, as we have related in another place, it has been deposited by Vasari with a rich, costly, and handsome ornament, in the Pieve of that city. The affairs of the Hall of Kings remaining in the condition that has been described above, when Duke Cosimo departed from Siena in order to go to Rome, Vasari, who had gone as far as that with his Excellency, recommended Salviati warmly to him, beseeching him to make interest on his behalf with the Pope, and to Francesco he wrote as to all that he was to do when the Duke had arrived in Rome. In all which Francesco departed in no way from the advice given him by Giorgio, for he went to do reverence to the Duke, and was welcomed by his Excellency with an aspect full of kindness, and shortly afterwards so much was said to his Holiness on his behalf, that the half of the above-mentioned Hall was allotted to him. Setting his hand to the work, before doing any other thing he threw to the ground a scene that had been begun by Daniello; on which account there were afterwards many contentions between them. The Pontiff was served in matters of architecture, as has been already related, by Pirro Ligorio, who at first had much favoured Francesco, and would have continued to favour him; but Francesco paying no more attention either to Pirro or to any other after he had begun to work, this was the reason that Ligorio, from being his friend, became in a certain sort his adversary, and of this very manifest signs were seen, for Pirro began to say to the Pope that since there were many young painters of ability in Rome, and he wished to have that Hall off his hands, it would be a good thing to allot one scene to each of them, and thus to see it finished once and for all. These proceedings of Pirro's, to which it was evident that the Pope was favourable, so displeased Francesco, that in great disdain he retired from the work and all the contentions, considering that he was held in little estimation. And so, mounting his horse and not saying a word to anyone, he went off to Florence, where, like the strange creature that he was, without giving a thought to any of the friends that he had there, he took up his abode in an inn, as if he did not belong to the place and had no acquaintance there nor anyone who cared for him in any way. Afterwards, having kissed the hands of the Duke, he was received with such kindness, that he might well have looked for some good result, if only he had been different in nature and had adhered to the advice of Giorgio, who urged him to sell the offices that he had in Rome and to settle in Florence, so as to enjoy his native place with his friends and to avoid the danger of losing, together with his life, all the fruits of his toil and grievous labours. But Francesco, moved by sensitiveness and anger, and by his desire to avenge himself, resolved that he would at all costs return to Rome in a few days. Meanwhile, moving from that inn at the entreaty of his friends, he retired to the house of M. Marco Finale, the Prior of S. Apostolo, where he executed a Piet
All these tracts of country, as well as the more grandiose scenery of his native Cadore itself, he had the amplest opportunities for studying in the course of his many journeyings from Venice to Pieve and back, as well as in his shorter expeditions on the Venetian mainland.
It was larger than Blanca Sforza had brought the Emperor Maximilian; moreover, one of the duke's demands involved an infraction of the canon law, for, in addition to the large sum of money, he insisted upon the remission of the yearly tribute paid the Church by the fief of Ferrara, the cession of Cento and Pieve, cities which belonged to the archbishopric of Bologna, and even on the relinquishment of Porto Cesenatico and a large number of benefices in favor of the house of Este.
At Castello della Pieve he painted an altar-piece in oils of the Visitation of Our Lady, with some Saints about her, and in an altar-piece that was painted for the Pieve a San Stefano he depicted the Madonna and other Saints; which two works Lappoli executed much better than the others that he had painted up to that time, because he had been able to see at his leisure many works in relief and casts taken in gesso from the statues of Michelagnolo and from other ancient works, and brought by Giorgio Vasari to his house at Arezzo.
This proposal pleased Raffaello: wherefore, abandoning his works in Florence, and leaving the panel for the Dei unfinished, in the state in which Messer Baldassarre da Pescia had it placed in the Pieve of his native city after the death of Raffaello, he betook himself to Rome.
Afterwards, having returned to Tuscany, he made a marble tomb, with a very beautiful scene, in the Pieve of Montepulciano, and a lavatory of marble, on which Andrea Verrocchio also worked, in the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo in Florence; and in the house of Lorenzo della Stufa he wrought some heads and figures that are very spirited and vivacious.
But having recognized the need of this, he applied himself to the study of drawing, in spite of his being well advanced in years; and thus little by little he achieved the improvement that is evident in the windows that he afterwards made for the Palace of the said Cardinal at Cortona, and for the other without the city, in a round window that is in the aforesaid Pieve, over the façade, on the right hand as one enters the church, wherein are the arms of Pope Leo X, and likewise in two little windows that are in the Company of Gesù, in one of which is a Christ, and in the other a S. Onofrio.
In the churches of San Giacomo Maggiore and of the Madonna del Baracano, both in Bologna, are Fontana's pictures of the "Madonna with Saints." In Pieve di Cento are two of her works a "Madonna" and an "Ascension." It is said that several pictures by this artist are in England, but I have failed to find to what collections they belong.
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