Note 37 — BOOK I. (continued 2)

Padre Faccioli, in his third volume of the Inscrizioni della Città e territorio di Vicenza, records the following epigraph, Jo. Sperantiæ de Vangeribus me pinxit, in which Vangeribus may, perhaps, apply to some small village in the territory of Vicenza. He is wholly silent respecting Veruzio, thus confirming the suspicion that his name is a mere mistake of Vasari, whom it is hoped our posterity will still continue to correct, and yet leave sufficient employment for their children. The following is my conjecture. P. Faccioli gives an account of a picture that remains in S. Francesco di Schio; it is composed in the manner usually adopted in the composition of the marriage of S. Catherine; and there are also other saints well executed in the Mantegna style, as is observed by the Cav. Gio. de Lazara, whose authority I esteem excellent. It bears the inscription, "Franciscus Verlus de Vicentia pinxit xx. Junii. M. D. XII.;" and to this is added by Faccioli another old painting by the same hand, remaining at Sercedo. Now I contend that the name of this painter, being reported to Vasari, with its diminutive termination, like many others, borrowed either from the stature or the age, (in the Venetian dialect it was Verlucio or Verluzo) it was afterwards given by him in his history as Veruzio. The critics of the Greek writers will know how to do me justice in this, for this mode of discovering and correcting names I have derived from them.