Life of Taddeo Zucchero, Painter of Sant'Agnolo in Vado
Qui Agit Plurima, Plurimum Peccat
To put it briefly, this room is very ornate with beautiful figures, and likewise very rich in stucco and gold. 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.
Taddeo, in addition to the works described above, executed many others of which there is no need to make mention; but in particular a chapel in the Church of the Goldsmiths in the Strada Giulia, a facade in chiaroscuro at S. Gieronimo, and the Chapel of the High-altar in S. Sabina. And his brother Federigo is painting for the Chapel of S. Lorenzo, which is all wrought in stucco, in S. Lorenzo in Damaso, an altar-piece with that Saint on the gridiron and Paradise all open; which altar-piece is expected to prove a very beautiful work. And, in order not to omit anything that may be useful, pleasing, or helpful to anyone who may read these my labours, I shall add this as well. While Taddeo was working, as has been related, at the Vigna of Pope Julius and at the facade of Mattiuolo, the Master of the Post, he executed for Monsignor Innocenzio, the most reverend and illustrious Cardinal di Monte, two painted pictures of no great size; and one of them, which is beautiful enough, is now in the guardaroba of that Cardinal (who has given the other away), in company with a vast number of things ancient and modern, all truly of the rarest, among which, I must not omit to mention, there is a painted picture as fantastic as any work of which we have spoken hitherto. In this picture, which is about two braccia and a half in height, there is nothing to be seen by him who looks at it from the ordinary point of view, from the front, save some letters on a flesh-coloured ground, and in the centre the Moon, which goes gradually increasing or diminishing according to the lines of the writing. And yet, if you go below the picture and look in a sphere or mirror that is placed over the picture in the manner of a little baldachin, you see in that mirror, which receives the image from the picture, a most lifelike portrait in painting of King Henry II of France, somewhat larger than life, with these words about it--HENRY II, ROY DE FRANCE. You can see the same portrait by lowering the picture, placing your brow on the upper part of the frame, and looking down; but it is true that whoever looks at it in that manner, sees it turned the other way from what it is in the mirror.
That portrait, I say, cannot be seen save by looking at it as described above, because it is painted on twenty-eight ridges, too low to be perceived, which are between the lines of the words given below, in which, besides the ordinary meaning, there may be read, by looking at both ends of the lines and in the centre, certain letters somewhat larger than the others, which run thus--