The following summary of the fortunes of painters is at once curious and
interesting:--
“One must confess that if the poets were an order of beings of too great
sensibility for this world, the painters laboured still more under this
malady of genius. Zoppo, a sculptor, having accidentally broken the
_chef d’œuvre_ of his efforts, destroyed himself. Chendi poisoned
himself, because he was only moderately applauded for the decorations of
a tournament. Louis Caracci died of mortification because he could not
set right a foot in a fresco, the wrong position of which he did not
perceive till the scaffolding was taken away. Cavedone lost his talent
from grief at his son’s death, and begged his bread from want of
commissions. Schidone, inspired with the passion of play, died of
despair to have lost all in one night. There was one who languished, and
was no more from seeing the perfection of Raphael. Torrigini, to avoid
death at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition, put an end to himself,
having broken to pieces his own statue of the Virgin, an avaricious
hidalgo, who had ordered it, higgling at the price. Bandinelli died,
losing a commission for a statue; Daniel de Volterra, from anxiety to
finish a monument to Henry IV. of France. Cellini frequently became
unwell in the course of his studies, from the excitement of his
feelings. When one sums up the history of painters with the furious and
bloody passions of a Spagnoletto, and Caravaggio, Tempeste, and
Calabrese, one must suppose all their sensibilities much stronger than
those of the rest of mankind.”