Giorgio Vasari

“ Having returned to Rome, Giovanni painted a series of large festoons around the angles and sections of a ceiling in the Loggia of Agostino Chigi, where Rafiaello had executed and was then continuing the decorations; Giovanni there represented fruits and flowers appropriate to every season of the year, each season following in regular succession, and the foliage, fruits, and flowers, being all finished to such perfection, that every separate object seen there, appears to be detached from the walls, and is indeed most natural. ”

“ Nay, where, in the works of any other master, will you find birds more truly natural, so to speak, or which come nearer to the truth, whether as regards the colouring, softness of the plumage, or other praiseworthy qualities, than do those of the friezes and pilasters of the Loggie now in question, where are they to be seen of every kind, and in all instances more truthful and life-like? ”

“ But what more can I say?—to sum up the whole, I may safely venture to affirm. that in this sort of paintings, Giovanni da Udine has far surpassed all those who have best imitated Nature in works of a similar kind; for, to say nothing of other matters, it was the custom of our artist to depict every object, even to the flowers of the elder, the fennel, and other things, however minute, with an exactitude that is most amazing. ”

“ But above all did Giovanni delight in depicting birds of every kind, and of these he soon completed a book full of so much variety and beauty that Raffaello found a perpetual amusement and interest therein. Now there was at that time with Raphael, a Fleming called Giovanni, who was an excellent master in fruits, foliage, and flowers, all which he executed beautifully, and with the utmost truth to nature, although in a manner that was somewhat hard and laboured ”

“ In the lunettes, which are surrounded by the above-mentioned garlands, or festoons, are large numbers of anihials, with figures of children holding the attributes of the Gods in their hands; but more than all the rest are admired, a lion and a seahorse; these are foreshortened in a manner which is so beautiful that they are held to be all but miraculous.
The works here in question being completed, Giovanni decorated a bath-room of much beauty, in the Castello Sant’ Angelo, and performed many other less important works in the Palace of the Pope ”

“ This artist likewise painted the Loggia of the Yigna, which Giulio, Cardinal de’ Medici, caused to be constructed under Monte Mario, and made all the ornaments in stucco for that Loggia, wherein there are animals, grottesche, festoons, and arabesques, [9] which are so beautiful that Giovanni may be supposed to have been desirous of surpassing himself on that occasion; [10] the Cardinal, who highly estimated his abilities, not only conferred many benefits on the kinsmen of Giovanni, but also gave him a canonicate for himself. ”

“ At a word, it may truly be asserted, without offence to other artists, that for a work of this kind the paintings here in question are the most beautiful, the most extraordinary, and the most admirable, that have ever been seen by mortal eye. Nay, I will furthermore venture to declare, that this has been the cause why not Rome alone, but every other part of the world also, has been filled with these pictures. For not only was Giovanni more than the restorer, he may even be called the inventor, of stucco work and other grottesche ”

“ On a small vaulting of a coved form, near the above-mentioned Loggia, Giovanni then executed certain ornaments of stucco in very low relief, with several pictures of extraordinary merit, which greatly pleased the painters who were then in Florence, as giving evidence of much boldness and singular facility, while they were full of spirited and fanciful inventions ”

“ The variety of kind also in those fruits, grain, &c., is so wonderful, that I will not attempt to enumerate them one by one, and will only say that every sort which has ever been produced by Nature in our part of the world may there be found represented. ”

“ Having reached that city he was placed by Cartiglioni in the school of Ratfaello, where he acquired a thorough knowledge of the principles of his art, which is a matter of great importance, seeing that when the disciple commences by adopting a bad manner, it rarely happens that he afterwards attains to a good one, or in any case if he do so, it must always be a work of infinite ditficulty. ”

“ The death of Raphael, which grieved Giovanni very much, then ensued, and Pope Leo having also departed, the Arts of Design, with every other kind of talent, were found to have no longer any place in Rome ”

“ Having completed that undertaking, Giovanni received from the Cardinal the dignity of a knighthood of San Pietro, and was then sent to Florence, to the end that, having erected a certain chamber at that corner of the Medici Palace where Cosimo the elder, founder of the edifice, had made a Loggia for the assemblage and accommodation of the citizens, as it was formerly the custom of the most noble families to do, he might then paint and adorn the same with grottesche and ^stucco-work. ”

“ Wherefore, his genius and power of hand giving good aid to his judicious intention, he made extraordinary progress, and very soon became capable of drawing and painting to such perfection that he rapidly succeeded, at a word, in the successful imitation of whatever natural objects were placed before him, whether animals, landscapes, buildings, draperies, vases, implements, foliage, or whatever else the object might be ”

“ Of this Loggia, Giovanni now decorated all the vaulting with pictures and stucco-^work, exhibiting, in a circular* compartment thereof, the six balls, which are the arms of the Medici, and giving as supporters three boys in relief, the figures of which are singularly beautiful and graceful in their attitudes. Pie also represented numbers of admirably depicted animals in the same place, adding many fair devices of the Signori belonging to that illustrious house, with stories in mezzo-rilievo, made of stucco ”