Vasari evidently gives the greater merit in these early works to Polidoro, but as the later works which he painted when alone, were very different in style from these sod others which were done in Rome in this period, in company with Maturino, some recent writers have ventured to give Maturino the greater credit, These works were in fresco and in light and shade, or what the Italian, call chlarisenri, and consist mostly of friezes and other decorations, in imitation of bronze or marble, applicable for buildings, interiors or exteriors. Their figures, of which they were not sparing, were drone in a pure antique style, and not inferior in that respect to the works of any modern master. They imitated ancient statues and basal-rilievi, and ancient sculptured ornaments of any kind. Vasari says that there was not • fragment of ancient ornamental art in Rome which they did not copy ; they painted also original works from sacred and modern story.
Of all these works however searce17 a vestige remains, but some are in a measure preserved by the prints of Cherubim) Alberti, P. S. Bartell, and OalestruzzL The last engraved, in five sheets, the story of Niobe, which Maturino and Cnravaggio painted as a frieze on the facade of a house opposite the Palazzo Lancellotti: it was one of their masterpieces.
The sack of Rome, by the soldiers of Bourbon in 1527, put an end to the joint labours of Polidoro and Maturino ; they both fled, but Maturino is supposed to have returned, and to have died of the plague in the same year. Paden, went to Naples, where be was received into the house of Andrea do Salerno : be practised there some time, but finding that his works were not duly appreciated, he removed to Messiva. Here, in 1530, upon the visit of Charles V., on hla return
from his victorious expedition to Tunis, ho watt intrusted with the conduct of the triumphal decorations on the occasion. He dwelt several years in Messina in high esteem, and executed many good works, not in the early style of chiariseuri, but in colours ; end some of them were for altarpiece•* l'eeari mentions a Christ led to Calvary' amidst a crowd of people, as a masterpiece. In 1543 he made up his mind to return to Rome, having, to his misfortune, as itproved, amassed a considerable sum of money. Polidoro had provided himself with a large sum of money, and all things were prepared for his departure the ensuing morning. A servant whom he had had many years was to accompany him ; but the wretch hired some assassins to strangle him during the night, when he was asleep, agreeing to there the booty with the assassins, who having stabbed the body of Polidoro in two or three places, carried it to the door of a house where a lady lived whom he had been in the habit of visiting. The servant went weeping and lamenting, and related the discovery of the body to a certain count, a friend of Polidere's but he eventually suspected the truth of the mates story, and caused him to be put to the rack, upon which he made a circumstantial confession of the whole infamous affair. The miserable oreature was tortured with heated forceps, hanged, and quartered. Polidoro was buried in the cathedral of Messina. Some of the pictures which ho painted at Messina are in the Gallery of Naples. He excelled in landscape. He else etched several plates in a good style; they are however extremely scarce : the prints after him are likewise scarce.
(Vend, Fite de Putori, &c.; Oandellini, Icolizfe Isforiche, tte.; Lanz!, &mice Pit/erica, Av.)