Note 61 — BOOK I. (continued 3)

Thus stated in the Lettere Pittoriche, vol. i. p. 248. Recent writers of Friuli make him a native of Udine, a modern supposition, inasmuch as Grassi, a very diligent correspondent of Vasari, would hardly have been silent upon such a name. It took its rise, most likely, from the existence of a noble family of the same surname, in Udine, and from three of the artist's pictures having been discovered in the same place, one with the date 1595. Yet none are to be seen at Casa Frangipane, a circumstance very unusual in regard to excellent artists. We must look, therefore, for other proofs before we can pronounce him a native of Udine, and before we can assent to the conjecture of Rinaldis, who would admit two artists of the name of Niccolo Frangipane, the one a painter by profession, and the other a dilettante; and yet contemporaries, as appears from the authority of the dates of the pictures, already referred to.