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Updated: May 12, 2025
After that, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, having brought very near completion his Palace of Caprarola, with Vignuola as architect, of whom there will be an account in a short time, gave the charge of painting it all to Taddeo, on these conditions: that, since Taddeo did not wish to abandon his other works in Rome, he should be obliged to make all the cartoons, designs, divisions, and arrangements for the works in painting and in stucco that were to be executed in that place; that the men who were to carry them into execution should be chosen by Taddeo, but paid by the Cardinal; and that Taddeo should be obliged to work there himself for two or three months in the year, and to go there as many times as it might be necessary to see how things were progressing, and to retouch all that was not to his satisfaction.
In that building, and in other works that he executed for that Pontiff, he endured much labour, but was badly rewarded for it. Finally Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, having recognized the genius of Vignuola, to whom he always showed much favour, desired, in carrying out the building of his Palace at Caprarola, that the whole work should spring from the fanciful design and invention of Vignuola.
Vignuola then went to Rome to work at painting, and to obtain from that art the means to assist his poor family; and at first he was employed at the Belvedere with Jacopo Melighini of Ferrara, the architect of Pope Paul III, drawing some architectural designs for him.
Meanwhile Francesco Primaticcio, the Bolognese painter, of whom there will be an account in another place, had arrived in Rome, and he made much use of Vignuola in making moulds of a great part of the antiques in Rome, in order to take those moulds into France, and then to cast from them statues in bronze similar to the antiques; which work having been despatched, Primaticcio, in going to France, took Vignuola with him, in order to make use of him in matters of architecture and to have his assistance in casting in bronze the above-mentioned statues of which they had made the moulds; which things, both the one and the other, he did with much diligence and judgment.
But to return to Vignuola; how excellent he is in matters of architecture, the works that he has written and published and still continues to write, in addition to his marvellous buildings, bear ample testimony, and in the Life of Michelagnolo we shall say all that it may be expedient for us to say in this connection.
On the walls of this hall are perspective-views of buildings drawn by Vignuola and coloured by his son-in-law, which are very beautiful and make the room seem larger than it is. Beside this hall is a smaller hall of forty palms, which comes exactly at the next corner, and in it, besides the works in stucco, are painted things that are all significant of Spring.
Then, Vasari having made before any of the others the designs for the court and the fountain at the foot of the new Palace, which were afterwards carried on by Vignuola and Ammanati and built by Baronino, Prospero Fontana, in painting many pictures there, as will be related hereafter, availed himself not a little of Taddeo in many things.
Now, since mention has been made above of Jacopo Barozzi of Vignuola, saying that after his architectural designs and directions the most illustrious Cardinal Farnese has built his rich and even regal villa of Caprarola, let me relate that the same Jacopo Barozzi of Vignuola, a Bolognese painter and architect, who is now fifty-eight years of age, was placed in his childhood and youth to learn the art of painting in Bologna, but did not make much proficience, because he did not receive good guidance at the beginning.
But since the works that Taddeo executed at Caprarola will be described at some length in a little time, in discoursing of Vignuola, who built that fabric, for the present I shall say nothing more of them.
Within the five angles of the pentagon Vignuola has made a circular court, into which all the apartments of the edifice open with their doors; which doors, I mean, all open into the circular loggia surrounding the court, which is eighteen palms in breadth, while the diameter of the remaining space in the court is ninety-five palms and five inches.
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