Note 42 — BOOK I. (continued 2)

I made mention elsewhere of P. Federici's supposition, as being at least probable, that F. Sebastiano was the same person as F. Marco Pensaben, a Dominican. The year of their birth is certainly the same. But other dates are too discordant; if, indeed, we are not to suppose that the whole of what Vasari has written of Sebastiano, in his life of him, as well as in those of Sanzio and Peruzzi, is merely fanciful. It is by no means worth our while to draw minute comparisons between the epochs of these two painters. In 1520, we found Pensaben in Venice; next at Trevigi, where he remained till July, 1521. Now Sebastiano, the Venetian, was, at this very period, at Rome. The Car. Giulio de'Medici had committed to Raffaello the picture of the Transfiguration, which having hardly completed, that artist died on Good Friday, 1520; and during the same time, as if in competition with Raffaello, Sebastiano was employed in painting the Resurrection of Lazarus, for the same Cardinal, which, soon after, was exhibited along with the Transfiguration, and then sent into France. More still—he likewise drew the Martyrdom of Santa Agata, for the Cardinal of Aragona; a piece which, in the time of Vasari, was in possession of the Duke of Urbino; then in the Palazzo Pitti at Florence, whence it passed into France. There is the name of Sebastianus Venetus, and the year 1520 affixed to it. This artist therefore can, by no means, be confounded with F. Marco, nor the painting of this last at Trevigi be ascribed to the former. Such a mistaken opinion has been attributed to me by the learned P. Federici; (vol. i. p. 120) but on what ground I know not.