" Il Rosso-Giovambattista had been a Florentine pupil of
Michelangelo, but refused to follow any master, having, as Vasari says, "a
certain inkling of his own." Francois I. was delighted with him at first,
and made him head of all the Italian colony at Fontainebleau, where he was
known as "Maitre Roux." But in two years the king was longing to patronize
some other genius, and implored Giulio Romano, then engaged on the Palazzo
del Te at Mantua, to come to him. The great master refused to come
himself, but in his place sent the Bolognese Primaticcio, who became known
in France as Le Primatice.
The new-comer excited the furious jealousy of Il Rosso, whom he supplanted
in favor and popularity, and who, after growing daily more morose, took
poison in 1541. Then Primaticcio, who, to humor his rival had been sent
into honorable exile (on plea of collecting antiquities at Rome), was
summoned back, and destroyed most of Il Rosso's frescoes, replacing them
by his own. Those that remain are now painted over, and no works of Il
Rosso are still in existence (unless in engravings) except some of his
frescoes at Florence.
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