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During this time Antonio di Monte, Cardinal of Santa Prassedia, was in Rome, and he desired that the same architect should build for him the palace that he afterwards occupied, looking out upon the Agone, where there is the statue of Maestro Pasquino; and in the centre, which looks over the Piazza, he wished to erect a tower.
At this time, he made a beginning with a palace in the township of Monte San Sovino, for Antonio di Monte, Cardinal of Santa Prassedia; and he built another for the same man at Montepulciano, both being executed and finished with extraordinary grace. He also made a model for the Madonna of Cortona; but I do not think that this was put into execution.
Then, having withdrawn to work by himself, Giulio painted a picture of Our Lady, with a cat that was so natural that it appeared to be truly alive; whence that picture was called the Picture of the Cat. In another picture, of great size, he painted a Christ being scourged at the Column, which was placed on the altar of the Church of S. Prassedia at Rome.
This picture, which was executed for the above-mentioned Cardinal dal Monte, who was titular of S. Prassedia, was placed in the centre of that church, over an altar beneath which is a well of the blood of Holy Martyrs a beautiful idea, the picture alluding to the place where there was the blood of those Martyrs.
Thereupon, after the uncovering of that work, which did not prove to be of that excellence which many expected, Niccolò set himself to execute a picture in oils, in which he painted the Martyr S. Prassedia squeezing a sponge full of blood into a vessel; and he finished it with such diligence that he recovered in part the honour that he considered himself to have lost in painting the escutcheons described above.
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