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+Project Gutenberg's Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea D'Agnolo, by Leader Scott
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea D'Agnolo
+
+Author: Leader Scott
+
+Editor: Horace Shipp
+        Flora Kendrick
+
+
+Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7222]
+This file was first posted on March 27, 2003
+Last Updated: May 7, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRA BARTOLOMMEO AND ANDREA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Michelle Shephard, Tiffany Vergon, Charles
+Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+FRA BARTOLOMMEO and ANDREA D'AGNOLO
+
+
+By Leader Scott
+
+Author Of "A Nook In The Apennines"
+
+
+Re-Edited By Horace Shipp and Flora Kendrick, A.R.B.S.
+
+
+
+
+_The reproductions in this series are from official photographs of the
+National Collections, or from photographs by Messrs. Andersen, Alinari
+or Braun._
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael: the three great names of the noblest
+period of the Renaissance take our minds from the host of fine artists
+who worked alongside them. Nevertheless beside these giants a whole
+host of exquisite artists have place, and not least among them the
+three painters with whom Mr. Leader Scott has dealt in these pages. Fra
+Bartolommeo linking up with the religious art of the preceding period,
+with that of Masaccio, of Piero de Cosimo, his senior student in the
+studio of Cosimo Roselli, and at last with that of the definitely
+"modern" painters of the Renaissance, Raphael, Leonardo and Michelangelo
+himself, is a transition painter in this supreme period. Technique and
+the work of hand and brain are rapidly taking the place of inspiration
+and the desire to convey a message. The aesthetic sensation is becoming
+an end in itself. The scientific painters, perfecting their studies of
+anatomy and of perspective, having a conscious mastery over their tools
+and their mediums, are taking the place of such men as Fra Angelico.
+
+As a painter at this end of a period of transition--a painter whose
+spiritual leanings would undoubtedly have been with the earlier men, but
+whose period was too strong for him--Fra Bartolommeo is of particular
+interest; and Albertinelli, for all the fiery surface difference of his
+outlook is too closely bound by the ties of his friendship for the Frate
+to have any other viewpoint.
+
+Andrea del Sarto presents yet another phenomenon: that of the artist
+endowed with all the powers of craftsmanship yet serving an end
+neither basically spiritual nor basically aesthetic, but definitely
+professional. We have George Vasari's word for it; and Vasari's blame
+upon the extravagant and too-well-beloved Lucrezia. To-day we are so
+accustomed to the idea of the professional attitude to art that we can
+accept it in Andrea without concern. Not that other and earlier artists
+were unconcerned with the aspect of payments. The history of Italian
+art is full of quarrels and bickerings about prices, the calling in of
+referees to decide between patron and painter, demands and refusals
+of payment. Even the unworldly Fra Bartolommeo was the centre of such
+quarrels, and although his vow of poverty forbade him to receive money
+for his work, the order to which he belonged stood out firmly for the
+_scudi_ which the Frate's pictures brought them. In justice to Andrea it
+must be added that this was not the only motive for his activities;
+it was not without cause that the men of his time called him "_senza
+errori_," the faultless painter; and the production of a vast quantity
+of his work rather than good prices for individual pictures made his art
+pay to the extent it did. A pot-boiler in masterpieces, his works have
+place in every gallery of importance, and he himself stands very close
+to the three greatest; men of the Renaissance.
+
+Both Fra Bartolommeo and Albertinelli are little known in this country.
+Practically nothing has been written about them and very few of their
+works are in either public galleries or private collections. It is in
+Italy, of course, that one must study their originals, although the
+great collections usually include one or two. Most interesting from
+the viewpoint of the study of art is the evolution of the work of the
+artist-monk as he came under the influence of the more dramatic modern
+and frankly sensational work of Raphael, of the Venetians and of
+Michelangelo. In this case (many will say in that of the art of
+the world) this tendency detracted rather than helped the work. The
+draperies, the dramatic poses, the artistic sensation arrests the mind
+at the surface of the picture. It is indeed strange that this devout
+churchman should have succumbed to the temptation, and there are moments
+when one suspects that his somewhat spectacular pietism disguised the
+spirit of one whose mind had little to do with the mysticism of the
+mediaeval church. Or perhaps it was that the strange friendship between
+him and Albertinelli, the man of the cloister and the man of the world,
+effected some alchemy in the mind of each. The story of that lifelong
+friendship, strong enough to overcome the difficulties of a definite
+partnership between the strict life of the monastery and the busy life
+of the _bottega_, is one of the most fascinating in art history.
+
+Mr. Leader Scott has in all three lives the opportunity for fascinating
+studies, and his book presents them to us with much of the flavour of
+the period in which they lived. Perhaps to-day we should incline to
+modify his acceptance of the Vasari attitude to Lucrezia, especially
+since he himself tends to withdraw the charges against her, but leaves
+her as the villainess of the piece upon very little evidence. The
+inclusion of a chapter upon Ghirlandajo, treated merely as a follower
+of Fra Bartolommeo, scarcely does justice in modern eyes to this fine
+artist, whose own day and generation did him such honour and paid him
+so well. But the author's general conclusions as to the place in art
+and the significance of the lives of the three painters with whom he
+is chiefly concerned remains unchallenged, and we have in the volume a
+necessary study to place alongside those of Leonardo, of Michelangelo
+and of Raphael for an understanding of the culmination of the
+Renaissance in Italy.
+
+                                               HORACE SHIPP.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+FRA BARTOLOMMEO.
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+    I. THOUGHTS ON THE RENAISSANCE
+   II. THE "BOTTEGA" OF COSIMO ROSELLI. A.D. 1475-1486
+  III. THE GARDEN AND THE CLOISTER. A.D. 1487-1495
+   IV. SAN MARCO. A.D. 1496-1500
+    V. FRA BARTOLOMMEO IN THE CONVENT. A.D. 1504-1509
+   VI. ALBERTINELLI IN THE WORLD. A.D. 1501-1510
+  VII. CONVENT PARTNERSHIP. A.D. 1510-1513
+ VIII. CLOSE OF LIFE. A.D. 1514-1517
+   IX. PART I.--SCHOLARS OF FRA BARTOLOMMEO
+       PART II.--SCHOLARS OF MARIOTTO ALBERTINELLI
+    X. RIDOLFO GHIRLANDAJO
+
+
+ANDREA DEL SARTO.
+
+
+CHAPTER    I. YOUTH AND EARLY WORKS. A.D. 1487-1511
+   II. THE SERVITE CLOISTER. A.D. 1511-1512
+  III. SOCIAL LIFE AND MARRIAGE. A.D. 1511-1516
+   IV. WORKS IN FLORENCE. A.D. 1511-1515
+    V. GOING TO FRANCE. A.D. 1518-1519
+   VI. ANDREA AND OTTAVIANO DE' MEDICI. A.D. 1521-1523
+  VII. THE PLAGUE AND THE SIEGE. A.D. 1525-1531
+ VIII. SCHOLARS OF ANDREA DEL SARTO
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+ADORATION. By BARTOLOMMEO PROCESSION TO CALVARY. By GHIRLANDAIO A
+SCULPTOR. By ANDREA DEL SARTO MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SS. JOHN AND
+ELIZABETH. By ANDREA DEL SARTO THE HOLY FAMILY. By BARTOLOMMEO THE
+SAVIOUR. By ALBERTINELLI VIRGIN AND CHILD. By ANDREA DEL SARTO ECCE
+HOMO. By BARTOLOMMEO
+
+
+
+
+FRA BARTOLOMMEO.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THOUGHTS ON THE RENAISSANCE.
+
+
+It seems to be a law of nature that progress, as well as time, should be
+marked by periods of alternate light and darkness--day and night.
+
+This law is nowhere more apparent than in the history of Art. Three
+times has the world been illuminated by the full brilliance of Art, and
+three times has a corresponding period of darkness ensued.
+
+The first day dawned in Egypt and Assyria, and its works lie buried in
+the tombs of prehistoric Pharaohs and Ninevite kings. The second day
+the sun rose on the shores of many-isled Greece, and shed its rays over
+Etruria and Rome, and ere it set, temples and palaces were flooded with
+beauty. The gods had taken human form, and were come to dwell with men.
+
+The third day arising in Italy, lit up the whole western world with the
+glow of colour and fervour, and its fading rays light us yet.
+
+The first period was that of mythic art; the world like a child
+wondering at all around tried to express in myths the truths it could
+not comprehend.
+
+The second was pagan art which satisfies itself that in expressing the
+perfection of humanity, it unfolds divinity. The third era of Christian
+art, conscious that the divine lies beyond the human, fails in aspiring
+to express infinitude.
+
+Tracing one of these periods from its rise, how truly this similitude
+of the dawn of day is carried out. See at the first streak of light
+how dim, stiff, and soulless all things appear! Trees and objects bear
+precisely the relation to their own appearance in broad daylight as the
+wooden Madonnas of the Byzantine school do to those of Raphael.
+
+Next, when the sun--the true light--first appears, how it bathes the sea
+and the hills in an ethereal glory not their own! What fair liquid tints
+of blue, and rose, and glorious gold! This period which, in art, began
+with Giotto and ended with Botticelli, culminated in Fra Angelico, who
+flooded the world of painting with a heavenly spiritualism not material,
+and gave his dreams of heaven the colours of the first pure rays of
+sunshine.
+
+But as the sun rises, nature takes her real tints gradually. We see
+every thing in its own colour; the gold and the rose has faded away with
+the truer light, and a stern realism takes its place. The human form
+must be expressed, in all its solidity and truth, not only in its
+outward semblance, but the hidden soul must be seen through the veil of
+flesh. And in this lies the reason of the decline; only to a few great
+masters it was given to reveal spirituality in humanity--the others
+could only emulate form and colour, and failed.
+
+It is impossible to contemplate art apart from religion; as truly as the
+celestial sun is the revealer of form, so surely is the heavenly light
+of religion the first inspirer of art.
+
+Where would the Egyptian, Assyrian, and Etruscan paintings and
+sculptures have been but for the veneration of the mystic gods of the
+dead, which both prompted and preserved them?
+
+What would Greek sculpture have been without the deified
+personifications of the mysterious powers of nature which inspired
+it? and it is the fact of the pagan religion being both sensuous and
+realistic which explains the perfection of Greek art. The highest ideal
+being so low as not to soar beyond the greatest perfection of humanity,
+was thus within the grasp of the artist to express. Given a manly figure
+with the fullest development of strength; a female one showing the
+greatest perfection of form; and a noble man whose features express
+dignity and mental power;--the ideal of a Hercules, a Venus, and a
+Jupiter is fully expressed, and the pagan mind satisfied. The spirit
+of admirers was moved more by beauty of form than by its hidden
+significance. In the great Venus, one recognises the woman before
+feeling the goddess.
+
+As with their sculpture, without doubt it was also with painting. Mr.
+Symonds, in his _Renaissance of the Fine Arts_, speaks of the Greek
+revival as entirely an age of sculpture; but the solitary glance into
+the more perishable art of painting among the Greeks, to be seen at
+Cortona, reveals the exquisite perfection to which this branch was also
+brought. It is a painting in encaustic, and has been used as a door
+for his oven by the contadino who dug it up--yet it remains a marvel
+of genius. The subject is a female head--a muse, or perhaps only a
+portrait; the delicacy and mellowness of the flesh tints equal those of
+Raphael or Leonardo, and a lock of hair lying across her breast is so
+exquisitely painted that it seems to move with her breath. The features
+are of the large-eyed regular Greek type, womanly dignity is in every
+line, but it is an essentially pagan face--the Christian soul has never
+dawned in those eyes! With this before us, we cannot doubt that Greek
+art found its expression as much in colour as in form and that the same
+religion inspired both.
+
+In an equal degree Renaissance Art has its roots in Christianity; but
+the religion is deeper and greater, and has left art behind.
+
+The early Christians must have felt this when they expressed everything
+in symbols, for these are merely suggestive, and allow the imagination
+full play around and beyond them; they are mere stepping-stones to the
+ideal which exists but is as yet inexpressible.
+
+"Myths and symbols always mark the dawn of a religion, incarnation and
+realism its full growth." So after a time when the first vague wonder
+and ecstasy are over, symbols no longer content people; they want to
+bring religion home to them in a more tangible form, to humanize it,
+in fact. From this want it arises that nature next to religion inspires
+art, and finally takes its place. For it follows as a matter of course
+that as art is a realistic interpreter of the spiritual, so it is more
+easy to follow nature than spirituality, nature being the outward or
+realistic expression of the mind of God.
+
+It was a saying of Buffalmacco, who was _not_ one of the most devout
+painters of the fourteenth century, "Do not let us think of anything but
+to cover our walls with saints, and out of disrespect to the demons to
+make men more devout." And Savonarola, though he has been accused
+of being one of the causes of the decline, thus upheld the sacred
+influences of art; when he exclaimed in one of his fervent bursts of
+eloquence, "You see that Saint there in the Church and say, 'I will live
+a good life and be like him.'" If these were the feelings of the least
+devout and the religious fanatic, how hallowed must the influences of
+Christian painting have been to the intermediate ranks. Mr. Symonds
+beautifully expresses the tendency of that time: "The eyes of the
+worshipper should no longer have a mere stock or stone to contemplate;
+his imagination should be helped by the dogmatic presentation of the
+scenes of sacred history, and his devotion quickened by lively images
+of the passion of our Lord.... The body and soul moreover should be
+reconciled, and God's likeness should be once more acknowledged in the
+features and limbs of men." [Footnote: Symonds' _Renaissance of the Fine
+Arts_, chap. i. p. 11.]
+
+The school of Giotto was the first to feel this need of the soul. He,
+taking his ideas from nature, clothed the soul in a thin veil; the
+Italians call his school that of poetic art; it reached sentiment and
+poetry, but did not pass them. Yet the thirteenth century was sublime
+for the expression of the idea; one only has to study the intense
+meaning in the works of Giotto, and Orcagna, Duccio, and the Lorenzetti
+of Siena to perceive this. The fourteenth century, on the contrary,
+rendered itself glorious for manifestation of form. "Artists thought the
+veil of ideality a poor thing, and wished to give the solidity of the
+body to the soul; they stole every secret from nature; the senses were
+content, but not sentiment." [Footnote: _Purismo nell' Arte_, da Cesare
+Guasti.]
+
+The artists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, of whom we have
+to speak, blended the two schools, and became perfection as far as
+they went. Michelangelo drew more from the vigorous thirteenth-century
+masters, and Raphael from the more sensuous followers of Masaccio and
+Lippi. The former tried to put the Christian soul into his works, but
+its infinite depth was unattainable. As his many unfinished works prove,
+he always felt some great overwhelming meaning in his inmost soul,
+which all his passionate artistic yearnings were inadequate to express.
+Raphael tried to bring realism into religion through painting, and
+to give us the scenes of our Lord's and the Apostles' lives in such a
+humanized aspect, that we should feel ourselves of his nature. But the
+incarnation of religion in art defeated its own ends; sensuousness was
+introduced in place of the calm, unearthly spirituality of the earlier
+masters. Compare the cartoon of S. Paul preaching at Athens, in which
+he has all the majesty of a Cæsar in the Forum, with the lowly spirit
+of the Apostle's life! In truth, Raphael failed to approach nearer
+to sublimity than Fra Angelico, with all his faulty drawing but pure
+spirit.
+
+After him, artists loved form and colour for themselves rather than for
+the spiritual meaning. Miss Owen [Footnote: _Art Schools of Medieval
+Christendom_, edited by Ruskin.] accuses Raphael of having rendered Art
+pagan, but this seems blaming him for the weakness of his followers, who
+took for their type his works rather than his ideal. The causes of the
+decline were many, and are not centred in one man. As long as Religion
+slumbered in monasticism and dogma, Art seizing on the human parts, such
+as the maternity of the Madonna, the personifications of saints who had
+lived in the world, was its adequate exponent. The religion awakened by
+the aesthetic S. Francis, who loved all kinds of beauty, was of the kind
+to be fed by pictures. But when Savonarola had aroused the fervour of
+the nation to its highest point, when beauty was nothing, the world
+nothing, in comparison to the infinity of God;--then art, finding itself
+powerless to express this overwhelming infinity, fell back on more
+earthly founts of inspiration, the classics and the poets.
+
+Lorenzo de' Medici and Pope Nicholas V. had fully as much to do with the
+decline as Savonarola. The Pope in Rome, and Lorenzo in Florence, led
+art to the verge of paganism; Savonarola would have kept it on the
+confines of purism; it was divided and fell, passing through the various
+steps of decadence, the mannerists and the eclectics, to rise again
+in this nineteenth century with what is after all its true aim, the
+interpretation of nature, and the illustration of the poetry of a
+nation.
+
+But with the decadence we have happily nothing to do; the artists of
+whom we speak first, Fra Bartolommeo and Albertinelli, belong to the
+culmination of art on its rising side, while Andrea del Sarto stands as
+near to the greatest artists on the other side, and is the last of the
+group before the decline. On Fra Bartolommeo the spirituality of Fra
+Angelico still lingered, while the perfection of Raphael illumined him.
+Andrea del Sarto, on the other side, had gathered into his hands
+the gleams of genius from all the great artists who were his elder
+contemporaries, and so blending them as to form seemingly a style of
+his own, distinct from any, has left on our walls and in our galleries
+hundreds of masterpieces of colour, as gay and varied as the tints the
+orientals weave into their wondrous fabrics.
+
+It might be said with truth that Fra Bartolommeo painted for the soul,
+and Andrea del Sarto for the eye.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE "BOTTEGA" OF COSIMO ROSELLI. A.D. 1475-1486.
+
+
+Amongst the thousand arteries in which the life blood of the Renaissance
+coursed in all its fulness, none were so busy or so important as the
+"botteghe" of the artists. In these the genius of the great masters,
+the Pleiades of stars at the culmination of art in Florence, was either
+tenderly nursed, or sharply pruned into vigour by struggling against
+discouragement and envy. In these the spirit of awakened devotion found
+an outlet, in altarpieces and designs for church frescoes which were
+to influence thousands. Here the spirit of poetry, brooding in the
+mysterious lines of Dante, or echoing from past ages in the myths of the
+Greeks, took form and glowed on the walls in mighty cartoons to be
+made imperishable in fresco. Here the spirit of luxury was satisfied
+by beautiful designs for ornaments, dress stuffs, tapestries, vases
+and "cassoni," &c., which brought beauty into every life, and made each
+house a poem. The soul, the mind, and the body, could alike be supplied
+at those fountains of the beautiful, the artshops or schools.
+
+Whilst Michelangelo as a youth was drawing from the cartoons of the
+Sassetti chapel in the school of Domenico Ghirlandajo, Cosimo Roselli
+was just receiving as a pupil a boy only a little behind him in genius.
+A small, delicate-faced, spiritual-eyed boy of nine years, known as
+Baccio della Porta, who came with a roll of drawings under his arm and
+high hopes in his soul, no doubt trotting along manfully beside Cosimo's
+old friend, Benedetto da Majano, the sculptor, who had recommended his
+being placed in the studio.
+
+By the table given in the note [Footnote: Pietro, a Genoese, came in
+1400 to the parish of S. Michele, at Montecuccioli in Mugello; he was
+a peasant, and had a son Jacopo, who was father of Paolo, the muleteer;
+and three other sons, Bartolo, Giusto, and Jacopo, who had a _podere_
+at Soffignano, near Prato. Paolo married first Bartolommea, daughter of
+Zanobi di Gallone, by whom he had a son, Bartolommeo, known as Baccio
+della Porta, born 1475. The first wife dying, Paolo married Andrea di
+Michaele di Cenni, who had four sons, Piero, Domenico, Michele,
+and Francesco; only Piero lived to grow up, and he became a priest.
+[_Favoured by Sig. Milanesi._]] it will be seen that Baccio was the son
+of Paolo, a muleteer, which no doubt was a profitable trade in those
+days when the country roads were mere mule-tracks, and the traffic
+between different towns was carried on almost entirely by horses and
+mulepacks. There is some doubt as to the place of Baccio's birth, which
+occurred in 1475. Vasari gives it as Savignano near Prato; Crowe and
+Cavalcaselle [Footnote: Vol. iii. chap. xiii. p. 427.] assert it was
+Suffignano, near Florence, where they say Paolo's brothers, Jacopo and
+Giusto, were contadini or peasants.
+
+But on consulting the post-office authorities we find no place called
+Suffignano near Florence; it must therefore have been a village near
+Prato called Soffignano, which from similarity of sound Vasari confused
+with the larger place, Savignano. This is the more probable, for Rosini
+asserts that "Benedetto da Majano, _who had bought a podere near Prato_,
+knew him and took him into his affections, and by his means placed him
+with Cosimo." [Footnote: Rosini, _Storia della Pittura_, chap. xvii. p.
+47.]
+
+It is certainly probable that Paolo's wife lived with his family during
+his wanderings, because it is the true Italian custom, and Baccio was
+in that case born in his uncle's house; for it is not till 1480 that
+we find Paolo retired from trade and set up in a house of his own in
+Florence at the gate of S. Pier Gattolini, now the Porta Romana.
+
+The friendship begun at Prato must have been continued in Florence,
+for in 1480 Paolo not only owned that house at the gate of S. Pier
+Gattolini, but was the proud possessor of a podere at Brozzi, which
+yielded six barrels of wine. He is a merciful man too, for among his
+possessions are two mules _disutili e vecchi_ (old and useless). At this
+time Baccio was six years old, and his three stepbrothers quite babies.
+[Footnote: Archives of Florence, Portate al Castato, 1480-1.] Paolo, as
+well as his mules, had earned his repose, being certainly old, if not
+useless, and was anxious for his little sons to be placed out in the
+world as early as possible. Thus it came that in 1484 Baccio was taken
+away from his brothers, who played under the shadow of the old gateway,
+and was put to do the drudgery of the apprenticeship to art. He had to
+grind colours for Cosimo--who, as we know, used a great deal of colour,
+having dazzled the eyes of the Pope with the brilliancy of his blue and
+gold in the Sistine Chapel some years before--he had to sweep out the
+studio, no doubt assisted by Mariotto Albertinelli, a boy of his own
+age, and to run errands, carrying designs for inspection to expectant
+brides who wanted the chests painted to hold their wedding clothes, or
+doing the messenger between his master and the nuns of S. Ambrogio, who
+paid Cosimo their gold florins by the hand of the boy in 1484 and 1485.
+[Footnote: Note to Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. iii. chap. xiii. p.
+429.]
+
+Whether his age made him a more acceptable means of communication with
+the nuns, or whether Pier di Cosimo, the elder pupil, already displayed
+his hatred of womankind, I know not; perhaps the boy already showed that
+innate devotion and especial fitness for sanctity which marks his entire
+art career. Truly everything in his youthful life combined to lead his
+thoughts to higher things. The first fresco at which he assisted was in
+this solemn cloister of St. Ambrogio, and the subject the _Miracle of
+the Sacrament_; the saintly air of the place, the calm faces of the
+white-hooded nuns, must all have had an influence in inspiring his
+youthful mind with the spirit of devotion.
+
+Baccio's fellow-students were not many, but they formed an interesting
+group. Pier di Cosimo was the head man, and eldest of all; with such
+ties was he bound to his master and godfather, that he was known better
+as Cosimo's Peter than by his own patronymic of Chimenti. He was at
+this time twenty-two years of age, his registry in the Florentine Guild
+proves his birth in 1462, as the son of Lorenzo, son of Piero, son of
+Antonio, Chimenti.
+
+Being the eldest of five brothers, it is difficult to conceive how a
+member of a large family grew up developing such eccentricities as are
+usually the fruit of isolation.
+
+In the studio Piero was industrious and steady, working earnestly,
+whether he was assisting his master's designs or carrying out his own
+fancies of monsters, old myths, and classic fairy stories. No doubt
+the two boys, Mariotto and Baccio, found little companionship in this
+abstracted young man always dreaming over his own ideas. If they told
+him an anecdote, he would look up vacantly at the end not having heard a
+word; at other times every little noise or burst of laughter would annoy
+him, and he would be immoderately angry with the flies and mosquitos.
+
+Piero had already been to Rome, and had assisted Cosimo in his fresco
+of _Christ preaching on Lake Tiberias_; indeed most judges thought his
+landscape the best part of that work, and the talent he showed obtained
+him several commissions. He took the portraits of Virginio Orsini,
+Ruberto Sanseverino and Duke Valentino, son of Pope Alessandro VI. He
+was much esteemed as a portrait painter also in Florence, and from his
+love of classical subjects, and extreme finish of execution, he ranked
+as one of the best painters of "cassoni," or bridal-linen chests.
+
+This fashion excited the indignation of Savonarola, who in one of his
+sermons exclaimed, "Do not let your daughters prepare their 'corredo'
+(trousseau) in a chest with pagan paintings; is it right for a Christian
+spouse to be familiar with Venus before the Virgin, or Mars before the
+saints?"
+
+Thus Piero being a finished painter, was often Cosimo Roselli's
+substitute in the instruction of the two boys, for Cosimo having come
+home from Rome with some money, lived at his ease; but still continued
+to paint frescoes in company with Piero.
+
+Another pupil was Andrea di Cosimo, whose peculiar branch of art
+was that of the grotesque. He no doubt drew designs for friezes and
+fountains, for architraves and door mouldings, in which distorted faces
+look out from all kinds of writhing scrolls; and lizards, dragons,
+snakes, and creeping plants, mingle according to the artist's fancy.
+Andrea was however often employed in more serious work, as the records
+of the Servite Convent prove, for they contain the note of payment to
+him, in 1510, for the curtains of the altarpiece which Filippino Lippi
+had painted. These curtains were till lately attributed to Andrea del
+Sarto, or Francia Bigio.
+
+This is the Andrea Feltrini mentioned by Crowe and Cavalcaselle as
+working in the cloister of the Servi with Andrea del Sarto and Francia
+Bigio between 1509 and 1514.[Footnote: _History of Painting_, vol. iii.
+chap. xvii. p. 546.]
+
+But Baccio's dearest friend in the studio was a boy nearly his own age,
+Mariotto Albertinelli, son of Biagio di Bindo, born October 13, 1474. He
+had experienced the common lot of young artists in those days, and
+had been apprenticed to a gold-beater, but preferred the profession of
+painter. From the first these two lads, being thrown almost entirely
+together in the work of the studio, formed one of those pure, lasting
+friendships, of which so many exist in the annals of art, and so few in
+the material world. They helped each other in the drudgery, and
+enjoyed their higher studies together; but they did not draw all their
+inspirations from the over-coloured works of Cosimo--although Mariotto
+once reproduced his red-winged cherubim in after life [Footnote: In the
+'Trinity' in the Belle Arti, Florence.]--nor from the hard and laboured
+myths of Piero.
+
+They went to higher founts, for scarcely a trace of these early
+influences are to be found in their paintings. Vasari says they studied
+the _Cose di Leonardo_. The great artist had at this time left the
+studio of Verocchio, and was fast rising into fame in Florence, so it
+is most probable that two youths with strong artistic tendencies would
+study, not only the sketches, but also the precepts, of the great man.
+Besides this there were two national art-schools open to students in
+Florence: these were the frescoes of Masaccio and Lippi in the Carmine,
+and the Medicean garden in the Via Cavour, then called Via Larga.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE GARDEN AND THE CLOISTER. A.D. 1487-1495.
+
+
+The two boys left the studio of Cosimo Roselli at an early age. There
+had been trouble in the house of Paolo the ex-muleteer, and Baccio's
+already serious mind had been awed by the sight of death. His little
+brother, Domenico, died in 1486 at seven years of age. His father,
+Paolo, died in 1487; thus Baccio, at the age of twelve or thirteen, was
+left the head of the family, and the supporter of his stepmother and her
+babes. This may account for his leaving Cosimo so young, and setting up
+his studio with Mariotto as his companion, in his own house at the gate
+of S. Pier Gattolini; this partnership began presumably about the year
+1490.
+
+Conscious that they were not perfected by Cosimo's teaching, they both
+set themselves to undergo a strict discipline in art, and, friends as
+they were, their paths began to diverge from this point. Their natural
+tastes led them to opposite schools--Baccio to the sacred shrine of art
+in the shadowed church, Mariotto to the greenery and sunshine of the
+Medici garden, where beauty of nature and classic treasures were heaped
+in profusion; whose loggie [Footnote: Arched colonnades.] glowed with
+the finest forms of Greek sculpture, resuscitated from the tombs of ages
+to inspire newer artists to perfection, but alas! also to debase the aim
+of purely Christian art.
+
+Baccio's calm devotional mind no doubt disliked the turmoil of this
+garden, crowded with spirited youths; the tone of pagan art was not in
+accordance with his ideal, and so he learned from Masaccio and Lippi
+that love of true form and harmonious composition, which he perfected
+afterwards by a close study of Leonardo da Vinci, whose principles
+of _chiaroscuro_ he seems to have completely carried out. With this
+training he rose to such great celebrity even in his early manhood, that
+Rosini [Footnote: Rosini, _Storia della Pittura_, chap. xvii. p.
+48.] calls him "the star of the Florentine school in Leonardo and
+Michelangelo's absence," and he attained a grandeur almost equal to the
+latter, in the S. Mark and SS. Peter and Paul of his later years.
+
+Meanwhile Mariotto was revelling in the Eden of art, drawing
+daily beneath the Loggie--where the orange-trees grew close to the
+pillars--from the exquisite statues and "torsi," peopling the shades
+with white forms, or copying cartoons by the older masters, which hung
+against the walls.
+
+The _custode_ of all these treasures was Bertoldo, an old sculptor, who
+boasted of having been the scholar of Donatello, and also heir to
+his art possessions. He could also point to the bronze pulpits of San
+Lorenzo, which he finished, as proof of his having inherited a portion
+of his master's spirit. Bertoldo, having doubtless rendered to Duke
+Cosimo's keeping his designs by Donatello, which were preserved in the
+garden, obtained the post of instructor there; but his age may have
+prevented his keeping perfect order, and the younger spirits overpowered
+him. There were Michelangelo, with all the youthful power of passion
+and force which he afterwards imparted to his works, and the audacious
+Torrigiano, with his fierce voice, huge bulk, and knitted brows, who
+was himself a discord like the serpent in Eden. Easily offended, he
+was prompt in offering outrage. Did any other young man show talent or
+surpass him, revenge deep and mean as that of Bandinelli to Michelangelo
+was sure to follow, the envied work being spoiled in his rage. Then
+there were the fun-loving Francesco Granacci, and the witty Rustici, as
+full of boyish pranks as they were of genius--what could one old man
+do among so many?--and now comes the impetuous Mariotto to add one more
+unruly member to his class.
+
+How well one can imagine the young men--in loose blouses confined at the
+waist, or in buff jerkins and close-fitting hose, with jaunty cloaks or
+doublets, and little red or black caps, set on flowing locks cut square
+in front--passing beneath the shadows of the arches among the dim
+statues, or crossing the garden in the sunshine amid the orange-trees,
+under the splendid blue Italian skies.
+
+We can see them painting, modelling, or drawing large cartoons in
+charcoal, while old Bertoldo passes from easel to easel, criticising and
+fault-finding, detailing for the hundredth time Donatello's maxims, and
+moving on, heedless or deaf to the irreverent jokes of his ungrateful
+pupils.
+
+Then, like a vision of power and grandeur, Lorenzo il Magnifico enters
+with a group of his classic friends. Politian and the brothers Pulci
+admire again the ancient sculptures which are to them as illustrations
+of their readings, and Lorenzo notes the works of all the students who
+were destined to contribute to the glory of the many Medicean palaces.
+How the burly Torrigiano's heart burns within him when the Duke praises
+his compeer's works!
+
+Sometimes Madonna Alfonsina, the mother of Lorenzo, and widow of Piero,
+walked here, and she also took an interest in the studies of the
+youths. Mariotto especially attracted her by his talent and zeal. She
+commissioned him to paint some pictures for her to send as a present to
+her own family, the Orsini of Rome. These works, of which the subjects
+are not known, passed afterwards into the possession of Cæsar Borgia.
+She also sat to Mariotto for her own portrait. It is easily imagined how
+elated the excitable youth became at this notice from the mother of the
+magnificent Lorenzo. He had dreams of making a greater name than even
+his master, Cosimo, whose handiwork was in the Sistine; of excelling
+Michelangelo, of whose genius the world was beginning to talk; and, as
+adhering to a party was the only way to success in those days, he became
+a strong Pallesco, [Footnote: The Palleschi were the partizans of the
+Medici, so called because they took as their standard the Palle, or
+Balls, the arms of that family.] trusting wholly in the favour of
+Madonna Alfonsina.
+
+He even absented himself almost constantly from the studio, which Baccio
+shared with him, and worked at the Medici palace, [Footnote: This break
+is signified by Baldinucci, _Opere_, vol. iv. p. 84, and by Vasari, who
+says that after the exile of Piero he returned to Baccio.] but, alas! in
+1494 this brilliant aspect of his fortunes changed.
+
+Lorenzo being dead, Piero de' Medici was banished, the great palace fell
+into the hands of the republican Signoria, and all the painters were
+left without patronage.
+
+Mariotto, very much cast down, bethought himself of a friend who never
+failed him, and whose love was not affected by party; and, returning to
+the house of Baccio, he set to work, most likely in a renewed spirit of
+confidence in the comrade who stood by him when the princes in whom he
+trusted failed him. Whatever his frame of mind, he began now to study
+earnestly the works of Baccio, who, while he was seeking patronage
+in the palace, had been purifying his genius in the Church. Mariotto
+imbibed more and more of Baccio's style, till their works so much
+resembled one another that indifferent judges could scarcely distinguish
+them apart. It would be interesting if we could see those early pictures
+done for Madonna Alfonsina, and compare them with the style formed after
+this second adherence to Fra Bartolommeo. What his manner afterwards
+became we have a proof in the _Salutation_ (1503), in which there is
+grand simplicity of motive combined with the most extreme richness of
+execution and fullest harmony of colour.
+
+This second union between the friends could not have been so
+satisfactory to either as the first pure boyish love, when they had been
+full of youthful hopes, and felt their hearts expand with the dreams
+and visions of genius. Now instead of the mere differences between two
+styles of art, there were differences which much more seriously affected
+their characters; they were daily sundering, one going slowly towards
+the cloister, the other to the world. Albertinelli had gained a greater
+love of worldly success and luxury.
+
+Baccio's mind, always attuned to devotion, was now intensified by family
+sorrows, which no doubt brought him nearer to heaven. Thus softened,
+he had the more readily received the seeds of faith which Savonarola
+scattered broadcast.
+
+Yet though every word of the one was a wound to the other, this
+strangely assorted pair of friends did not part. Rosini well defined
+their union as "a knot which binds more strongly by pulling contrary
+ways." [Footnote: _Storia della Pittura,_ chap. xvii. p. 48]
+
+So when Albertinelli, while colouring with zeal a design of Baccio's,
+would inveigh against all monks, the Dominicans in particular, and
+Savonarola especially, his friend would argue that the inspired prophet
+was not an enemy, but a purifier and reformer of art. Probably Baccio
+was at the Duomo on that Sunday in Lent, 1495, and reported to Mariotto
+those wondrous words of Savonarola, that "Beauty ought never to be
+taken apart from the true and good," and how, after quoting the same
+sentiments from Socrates and Plato, the preacher went on to say, "True
+beauty is neither in form nor colour, but in light. God is light, and
+His creatures are the more lovely as they approach the nearer to Him in
+beauty. And the body is the more beautiful according to the purity of
+the soul within it." Certain it is that this divine light lived ever
+after in the paintings of Fra Bartolommeo.
+
+He frequented the cloisters of San Marco, where even Lorenzo de' Medici
+used to go and hear the prior expound Christianity near the rose tree.
+There were Lorenzo di Credi and Sandro Botticelli, both middle-aged men,
+of a high standing as artists; there were the Delia Robbias, father and
+son, and several others. Sandro, while listening, must have taken in the
+inspired words with the scent and beauty of the roses, whose spirit he
+gives in so many of his paintings.
+
+Young Baccio, on the contrary, feasted his eyes on the speaker's face,
+till the very soul within it was imprinted on his mind, from whence he
+reproduced it in that marvellous likeness, the year after the martyrdom
+of Savonarola.
+
+This is the earliest known work of Fra Bartolommeo, and is a faithful
+portrait; the deep-sunk eye-socket, and eye like an internal fire,
+showing the preacher's powerful mind; the prominent aquiline nose and
+dilating vehement nostril bespeaking his earnestness and decision; the
+large full mouth alone shows the timorousness which none but himself
+knew of, so overpowered was it by his excitable spirit. The handling is
+Baccio's own able style, but Sig. Cavalcaselle thinks the influences
+of Cosimo Roselli are apparent in the low tone and clouded translucent
+colour; he signed it "Hieronymi Ferrariensis, a Deo missi prophetæ
+effigies," a legend which expresses the more than reverence which
+Baccio cherished for the preacher. This portrait has only lately
+been identified by its present possessor, Sig. Ermolao Rubieri, who
+discovered the legend under a coat of paint. Its vicissitudes are
+traceable from the time when Sig. Averardo (or, as Vasari calls him,
+Alamanno) Salviati brought it back from Ferrara, where no doubt it had
+been in the possession of Savonarola's family. Salviati gave it to
+the convent of San Vincenzo at Prato, from which place Sig. Rubieri
+purchased it in 1810. The likeness of the reformer in the Belle Arti of
+Florence has been supposed to be this one, but it is more likely to be
+the one done by Fra Bartolommeo at Pian di Mugnone in after years, when
+he drew the friar as S. Peter Martyr, with the wound on his head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+SAN MARCO. A.D. 1496-1500.
+
+
+Padre Marchese, himself a Dominican, speaks thus of his convent:--"San
+Marco has within its walls the Renaissance, a compendium in two artists.
+Fra Angelico, the painter of the ideal, Fra Bartolommeo, of form. The
+first closes the antique Tuscan school. He who has seen Fra Angelico,
+has seen also Giotto, Cimabue, &c. The second represents the modern
+school. In him are almost comprised Masaccio, Lorenzo di Credi,
+Leonardo, Buonarroti, and Andrea del Sarto."
+
+The first, Fra Angelico, "sets himself to contemplate in God the fount
+and architype of the beautiful, and, as much as is possible to mortal
+hands, reproduces and stamps it in those works which a sensual mind
+cannot understand, but which to the heavenly soul speak an eloquent
+language. Fra Bartolommeo, with more analysis, works thoughtfully ... he
+ascends from the effect to the cause, and in created things contemplates
+a reflection of spiritual beauty."
+
+It is true the Dominican order has been as great a patron of arts as the
+Franciscan of literature. It united with Niccolo Pisano to give form
+to national architecture. It had sculptors, miniaturists, and glass
+painters. As a building San Marco has been a shrine of art; since the
+time that Michelozzi, with the assistance of the Medici, built the
+convent for Sant' Antonino, and Fra Angelico left the impress of his
+soul on the walls, a long line of artist monks has lived within
+its cloisters. With San Marco our story has now to deal, for it is
+impossible to write Fra Bartolommeo's life without touching on the
+well-known history of Savonarola. The great preacher's influence in
+these years, from 1492 to 1497, entered into almost every individual
+in Florence, either to draw them to devotion, or to stir them up to the
+greatest opposition.
+
+The artists, whose minds were probably the most impressional, were his
+fervent adherents. He has been accused of being the ruin of art, but
+"this cry has only arisen in our time; the silence of contemporaries,
+although not friendly to him, proves that he was not in that century so
+accused." [Footnote: Gino Capponi, _Storia delta Republica di Firenze_,
+lib. vi. chap. ii.] The only mention of anything of artistic value is a
+"tavoliere" [Footnote: A chess or draught board.] of rich work, spoken
+of by Burlamacchi and Benivieni, in a "Canzone di un Piagnone sul
+bruciamento delle Vanità." Savonarola himself was an artist and musician
+in early life, the love of the beautiful was strong within him, only
+he would have it go hand in hand with the good and true. His dominant
+spirit was that of reform; as he tried to regenerate mind, morals,
+literature, and state government, so he would reform art, and fling over
+it the spiritual light which illumed his own soul.
+
+It was natural that such a mind should act on the devotional character
+of Baccio. What could he do but join when every church was full of
+worshippers, each shrine at the street corners had a crowd of devout
+women on their knees before it--when thousands of faces were uplifted in
+the vast expanse of the Duomo, and every face burned with fervour as the
+divine flame from the preacher lit the lamp of each soul--when in the
+streets he met long processions of men, women, and children, the echoes
+of whose hymns (Laudi) filled the narrow streets, and went up to the
+clear air above them?
+
+Then came that strange carnival when there were no maskers in the city,
+but white-robed boys went from house to house to collect the vanities
+for the burning--when the flames of the fires, hitherto saturnalian,
+were the flames of a holocaust, wherein each one cast the sins and
+temptations, even the pretty things which, though dear to himself,
+withdrew him from God. And when the white-robed boys came to the studio
+of the friends at the gate of S. Pier Gattolini, with what sighs and
+self-immolation Baccio looked for the last time at some of his studies
+which he judged to come under the head of _anathemata_, and handed them
+over to the acolytes. How Mariotto's soul, warm to Pagan art, burned
+within him at this sacrifice! And how he would talk more than ever
+against the monks, and hang up his own cartoons and studies of the Greek
+Venus in the studio for Baccio's behoof!
+
+In these years we have no notice of authentic works done by the youthful
+partners, though biographers talk of their having commissions for
+madonnas, and other works of art.
+
+In 1497 Francesco Valori, the grand-featured, earnest admirer of
+Savonarola, became Gonfaloniere in the time of Piero de' Medici's exile,
+[Footnote: Gino Capponi, _Storia delta Republica di Firenze_, lib. vi.
+chap. xi. p. 233.] and the friar's party was in the ascendent. Rosini
+[Footnote: _Storia delta Pittura_, chap. xvii. p. 48.] says that
+belonging to a faction was a means of fame, and that the Savonarola
+party was powerful, giving this as a reason for Baccio's partisanship;
+but this we can hardly believe, his whole life proved his earnestness.
+He was much beloved in Florence for his calm upright nature and good
+qualities. He delighted in the society of pious and learned men, spent
+much time in the convent, where he had many friends among the monks; yet
+with all he kept still faithful to his early friend Mariotto, whose
+life was cast so differently. Savonarola's faction was powerful, but the
+Medici had still adherents who stirred up a strong party against him.
+
+His spirit of reform at length aroused the ire of the Pope, who forbade
+him to preach. He disobeyed, and the sermons on Ezekiel were scenes
+of tumult; no longer a group of rapt faces dwelling on his words, but
+frowns, murmurs, and anathemas from a crowd only kept off him by a
+circle of armed adherents round his pulpit.
+
+At length, on June 22nd, the excommunication by Pope Alessandro VI.
+(Borgia) fell like a thunderclap, and the Medicean youths marched in
+triumphant procession with torches and secular music to burlesque the
+Laudi; no doubt Albertinelli was one of these, while Baccio grieved
+among the awestruck friars in the convent.
+
+In 1498 Savonarola again lifted up his voice; the church was not large
+enough, so he preached beneath the blue sky on the Piazza San Marco;
+and Fra Domenico Buonvicini da Pescia, in the eagerness of partisanship,
+said that his master's words would stand the ordeal of fire. Then came
+that tumultuous day of April 7th, the "Sunday of the Olives," when the
+Franciscans and Dominicans argued while the fire burnt out before
+them, when Savonarola's great spirit quailed within him, and the ordeal
+failed; a merciful rain quenching the flames which none dared to brave
+save the undaunted Fra Domenico himself.
+
+There was no painting done in the studio on that day we may be sure.
+Baccio was one of the surging, conflicting crowd gathered beneath the
+mingling shadows of Orcagna's arches and Arnolfo's great palace, and at
+eventide he was one of the armed partisans who protected the friar back
+to his convent, menaced not only by rains from heaven, but by the stormy
+wrath of an angry populace, defrauded of the sight they came to see.
+
+The next day was the one which determined the painter's future life.
+
+There was in the city a curious process of crystallisation of all the
+particles held in solution round the fire the previous day. The Palazzo
+Vecchio attracted about its doors the "Arrabiati." The "Compagnacci"
+assembled, armed, by the Duomo. The streets were full of detached
+parties of Piagnoni, treading ways of peril to their centre, San Marco.
+
+Passions raged and seethed all day, till at the hour of vespers a cry
+arose, "_à San Marco_," and thither the multitude--500 Compagnacci, and
+300 Palleschi--rushed, armed with picks and arquebusses, &c. They killed
+some stray Piagnoni whom they found praying by a shrine, and placed
+guards at the streets which led to the convent; then the assault began.
+
+The church was dimly lighted. Savonarola and Fra Domenico kneeled on the
+steps of the altar, with many worshippers around them, singing tremulous
+hymns; amongst these were Francesco Valori, Ridolfi, and Baccio della
+Porta, but all armed, as Cronaca tells us. They still sang hymns when
+the doors were attacked with stones; then leaving the priests and women
+to pray for them the men rushed to the defence.
+
+Old Valori, with a few brave friends, guarded the door; others made
+loop-holes of the windows and fired out; some went up the campanile, and
+some on the roof. Baccio fought bravely among the rest. The Palleschi
+were almost repulsed, but at length succeeded in setting fire to the
+doors. The church was filled with smoke; a turbulent crowd rushed wildly
+in. Savonarola saw his people fall dead beside him on the altar steps,
+and, taking up the Sacrament, he fled to the Greek library, where
+the messengers of the Signoria came and arrested both himself and Fra
+Domenico. It was in the fierce fight that ensued when the enemies poured
+in, laying hands sacrilegiously on every thing sacred, that Baccio made
+the vow that if he were saved this peril, he would take the habit--a vow
+which certainly was not made in a cowardly spirit, he fighting to the
+death, and then espousing the losing cause. [Footnote: Gino Capponi,
+lib. vi. chaps. i. and ii., and Padre Marchese, _San Marco_, p. 147 _et
+seq._]
+
+Then came that sad 23rd of May, the eve of the Ascension, when three
+martyrs went calmly to their death beneath the shadow of the old palace,
+amidst the insults of an infuriated crowd, and Arno's yellow waters
+received their ashes. [Footnote: Capponi, chap. ii. p. 253.]
+
+[Illustration: SAVONAROLO AS PETER MARTYR. BY FRA BARTOLOMMEO. _In the
+Accademia delle Belle Arti, Florence_.]
+
+After the death of Savonarola the party had many defaulters; but
+Baccio, the Delia Robbias, Credi, Cronaca, and many other artists, were
+faithful, and even showed their grief by abandoning for a time the arts
+they loved. "It almost seemed as if with him they had lost the sacred
+flame from which their fervid imagination drew life and aliment."
+[Footnote: Marchese, _San Marco_, lib. iii. p. 261.]
+
+While all these events had been taking place, Baccio had worked as often
+as his perturbed spirit would allow, at a great fresco of the _Last
+Judgment_, in a chapel of the cemetery of S. Maria Nuova. A certain
+Gerozzi, di Monna Venna Dini, gave him the commission, and as far as he
+had gone, the painter had given entire satisfaction. This fresco, his
+first as far as is known, shows Baccio's style as fully as his later
+ones. We have here his great harmony of form, and intense suggestiveness
+in composition. The infinity of heaven is emblematised in circles of
+saints and cherubim around the enthroned Christ. The cross, a link
+between heaven and earth, is borne by a trinity of angels; S. Michael,
+as the avenging spirit, stands a powerful figure in the foreground
+dividing the saved from the lost; the whole composition forming a
+heavenward cross on an earthly foundation. There are no caves and
+holes of torture with muscular bodies writhing within them; but in the
+despairing figures passing away on the right, some with heads bowed on
+clasped hands, others lifting up faces and arms in a vain cry for mercy,
+what suggestions there are of infinite remorse!--more dignified far than
+the distorted sufferers in the torture pits of previous masters. These
+are just indicated by two demons, and a subterranean fire behind the
+unblest souls. Miss Owen, [Footnote: _Art Schools of Christendom_,
+edited by Prof. Ruskin.] speaking Mr. Ruskin's sentiments, calls this
+a great falling off from Giotto and Orcagna's conceptions; but though
+theirs may be more powerful and terrible, a greater suggestion of
+Christian religion is here.
+
+They, and later, Michelangelo, flung Dante's great struggling soul in
+tangible forms upon the walls, and embodied his poem, awful, grand, and
+earnest, with all the human passion intensified into human suffering.
+Fra Bartolommeo shows the Christian spirit; his faces look beyond the
+present judgment, and, instead of wrath, mercy is the predominating
+idea. It is like the difference in spirit between the Old Testament and
+the New.
+
+The painter's reverence of Fra Angelico, and estimation of the divinity
+of art, is shown by Fra Angelico being placed among the saints of heaven
+on the right of the Saviour.
+
+Leonardo's instructions for shading off a light sky will occur to any
+one who studies the finely gradated tints mingling with the clouds
+around the celestial group. But grand as the fresco is, and interesting
+as it must have been to the artist at this time, when thoughts of
+Savonarola mingled with every stroke, he felt he was not fulfilling his
+true mission in the world. Drawn more and more to the convent, hallowed
+to him by the memory of the martyr-friar, he was also more attuned to
+thoughts of retirement by family bereavements--one young brother, Piero,
+only being left to him out of the whole circle. The reluctance to leave
+this youth alone may have deferred for a time his taking the monastic
+vows; but having placed him under the guardianship of Santi Pagnini, a
+Dominican, he consigned the _Last Judgment_ to Mariotto to finish, and
+leaving his worldly goods to his brother, took the habit in the convent
+of S. Domenico, at Prato, on July 26th, 1500, two years after first
+making the resolution. His year of probation over, he took the final
+vows and became Fra Bartolommeo.
+
+A document in S. Marco proves that he was possessed of worldly goods
+when he entered, [Footnote: Rosini, _Storia della Pittura_, chap xxvii.]
+among which were the house of his father in S. Pier Gattolini, and
+the podere at Brozzi. Having once given himself up to monasticism, Fra
+Bartolommeo would offer no half-service, his brushes were left behind
+with all other worldly things, and here closes Baccio della Porta's
+first artistic career.
+
+His sun was set only to rise again to greater brilliance in the future
+as Fra Bartolommeo, a name famous for ever in the annals of art.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+FRA BARTOLOMMEO IN THE CONVENT. A.D. 1504-1509.
+
+
+Four years had passed, and the monk had never touched a pencil, but his
+mission in art was not fulfilled, and events were working towards that
+end, for the spirit of art once awakened could not die either in that
+convent or in that age.
+
+His friend, Mariotto, kept him _au courant_ in all the gossip of art,
+and told him of the great cartoons of Leonardo and Michelangelo, which
+he too went to see. They might have inspired him afresh, or perhaps in
+advising Albertinelli he himself felt impelled to paint, or possibly the
+visits of Raphael in 1504 influenced him.
+
+Padre Marchese takes the conventional view, and says that Santi Pagnini,
+the oriental scholar and lover of art, came back to S. Marco in 1504 as
+prior, and used not only his entreaties, but his authority, to induce
+Fra Bartolommeo to recommence painting. However this may be, it is
+certain that when Bernardo del Bianco, who had built a beautiful chapel
+in the Badia from Rovezzano's designs, wished for an altar-piece worthy
+of its beauty, which he felt no hand could execute so well as that of
+the Frate--he yielded to persuasion, and the _Vision of S. Bernard_
+was begun. The contract is dated 18th November, 1504; a part payment
+of sixty florins in gold was made 16th of June, 1507. [Footnote: Padre
+Marchese, _Memorie_, iii. vol. ii. p. 594.]
+
+This picture, now in the Belle Arti of Florence, is so much injured by
+re-painting that some parts seem even crude. The saint is on his knees
+writing, while the vision of the Virgin and Child stands poised in
+air before him; she inspires his pen, and the infant Christ gives His
+blessing on the work. There is great spirituality and ecstasy in St.
+Bernard's face, his white robe contrasts well with two saints behind
+him, which carry out Fra Bartolommeo's favourite triangular grouping,
+and with a rich harmony of colour balance his white robe.
+
+The Virgin is drawn with great nobility and grace, her drapery admirably
+majestic, yet airy, and a sweet, infantile playfulness renders the Child
+charming. The angels beneath the Virgin's feet are lovely, but the group
+of seraphs behind are the least pleasing of all. They are of the earth,
+earthy, and seem reminiscences of the Florentine maidens the artist met
+in the streets. Possibly this is the part most injured by the restorer's
+hand. The colouring of the two saints behind S. Bernard-one in a green
+robe with bronze-gold shades, and the other blue and orange-is very
+suggestive of Andrea del Sarto, and seems to render probable Rosini's
+assertion that the Frate "taught the first steps of this difficult
+career to that artist who alone was called 'senz' errori.'"
+
+Having once retaken the brush, Fra Bartolommeo recovered his former
+skill and fame; a beautiful specimen of this period is the _Meeting of
+Christ with the Disciples of Emmaus_ (1506), a fresco in a lunette over
+the door of the refectory at S. Marco; in which he combines a richness
+of colouring rarely obtained in fresco, with a drawing which is almost
+perfect. Fra Niccolò della Magna, who was prior in that year, and
+left in 1507 to become Archbishop of Capua, sat for one of the saints.
+Contemporory with this may be dated also the figure of the _Virgin_,
+painted for Agnolo Doni, now in the Corsini gallery in Rome. Giovanni
+de' Medici also gave him a commission.
+
+Meanwhile the _S. Bernard_ was not paid for. Fra Bartolommeo priced it
+at 200 ducats, and the convent being the gainer by his works, took
+his own valuation. Bernardo offered only eighty ducats; the Frati were
+indignant, and called in the Abbot of the Badia as umpire; he being
+unable to move Bernardo, retired from office; then a council of friends
+was resolved on, in which Mariotto was for the painter, and Lorenzo de
+Credi for the purchaser; but this also failed.
+
+It was next proposed to submit the question to the Guild of Druggists
+(_arte degli speziali_), which included at that time also doctors and
+painters; but the convent, refusing lay judgment, took the offer of
+Francesco Magalotti, a relative of Bernardo, who priced it at 100
+ducats, and the monks had to be satisfied. The dispute ended July 17th,
+1507. [Footnote: Rosini, _Storia della Pittura_, chap, xxvii. p. 245,
+and Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, &c., vol. ii. pp. 42 to 45.]
+
+All writers agree as to the fact of Fra Bartolommeo's friendship
+with Raphael, but very few are decided as to its date. Raphael was
+in Florence in 1504, but then Fra Bartolommeo had not re-commenced
+painting, and would have no works in the convent to excite his
+admiration of the colouring. Padre Marchese, following Rosini and Padre
+Luigi Pungeleoni, asserts that this intimacy was during Raphael's second
+visit in 1506, when he might have seen the newly-finished fresco of
+_The Disciples at Emmaus_. It is undoubted that their intercourse was
+beneficial to both. Raphael studied anew Leonardo's principles of colour
+under Fra Bartolommeo's interpretation of them, and the Frate improved
+his knowledge of perspective and harmony of composition. It is said they
+worked together at some pictures, of which one is in France, and another
+at Milan; but there is not sufficient evidence to prove this.
+
+It is also thought that Fra Bartolommeo helped in the composition of
+Raphael's famous _Madonna del Baldacchino_, which is truly very much in
+his style.
+
+The year 1508 marks the Frate's first acquaintance with the Venetian
+school, which was not without its influence upon him. Frequent
+interchange of visits took place between the Dominicans in the different
+parts of Italy; and Fra Bartolommeo took the opportunity then offered
+him of going to visit his brethren at Venice.
+
+His namesake, Baccio di Monte Lupo, a sculptor who had fled from
+Florence after the death of Savonarola, and who had fought side by side
+with Baccio in the siege of S. Mark's church, was in Venice at that
+time, working on the tomb of Benedetto da Pesaro in the church of the
+Frati, and he was only too delighted to show the beauties of the Queen
+of the Adriatic to an artistic mind. Tintoretto was not yet born; Titian
+was only just rising into fame, though his style had not yet become what
+it was after Giorgione's influence; but Fra Bartolommeo must have found
+much that was sympathetic in the exquisite works of Giovanni Bellini and
+his school, and much to admire in the glorious colouring of Giorgione.
+
+Father Dalzano, the vicar of the monastery of S. Peter Martyr at Murano,
+gave the Florentine monk a commission for a picture of the value of
+seventy or 100 ducats. Not having time to paint this during his stay, he
+promised to execute it on his return to Florence, and the vicar paid him
+in advance twenty-eight ducats in money and colours; the rest was to be
+raised by the sale of some MS. letters from S. Catherine of Siena, which
+a friend of Father Dalzano near Florence held in possession.
+
+Fra Bartolommeo, having brought home from the Venetian school a new
+impulse for painting, and wishing to diffuse the religious influence of
+art more widely, desired to enlarge his atelier and school at San Marco.
+His only assistants in the convent were Fra Paolino of Pistoja, and one
+or two miniaturists, who were only good at missals. Fra Paolino (born
+1490) took the vows at a very early age, and was removed to Florence
+from Prato with Fra Bartolommeo. He was the son of a painter, Bernardino
+di Antonio, but though he learned the first principles from him, his
+real art was imbibed from the Frate, under whom, together with Mariotto,
+he worked for years.
+
+But this youthful scholar was not enough for Fra Bartolommeo's new
+energies. He pined for his old friend, Mariotto, who could follow out
+his designs in his own style so closely, that an unpractised eye could
+not see the difference of hand; and such was his influence on the rulers
+of the order, that they allowed a most unique partnership to be entered
+into.
+
+The parties were, Albertinelli on one side, and the convent and Fra
+Bartolommeo on the other. The partners to provide the expenses, and
+the profits to be divided between the convent and Mariotto; the vow
+of poverty not allowing Fra Bartolommeo as an individual any personal
+share. This began in 1509 and lasted till 1512. The inventory of the
+profits and the division made when the partnership was dissolved, given
+entire by Padre Marchese, [Footnote: Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, &c.,
+vol. ii.] are very interesting. The two artists had separate monograms
+to distinguish the pictures which were specially their own, besides
+which the monk signed his with the touching petition, "_orate pro
+pictore,_" his friend merely Latinising his name; the works painted
+together were signed by the combined monograms. Before setting a hand to
+anything else, the Frate fulfilled his engagement to the Venetian prior,
+for whom he painted the _Eternal in Heaven_, surrounded by saints and
+angels; but of this we will speak later.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+ALBERTINELLI IN THE WORLD. A.D. 1501-1510.
+
+
+During the interval between the second and third partnership of this
+incongruous pair of friends, the life of Albertinelli had been very
+different from that of the Frate. So distressed was he at losing Baccio
+that he was quite wild for a time. His passions being unruled, that of
+grief took entire possession of him. In his despair he vowed to give up
+painting; he declared that he would also become a monk, if it were not
+that he now hated them more than ever; besides, he was a Pallesco, and
+could not desert his party.
+
+After a time, however, he calmed down, and, looking on his friend's
+unfinished fresco of the _Last Judgment_ as a legacy from him, began
+to work at it as a kind of obligation till the occupation wove its
+own charm, and he steadily devoted himself to art again, much to the
+satisfaction of good Gerozzi Dini, who was in great perturbation, and
+declared there was not another hand but his in Florence which could
+finish it; and also to the relief of Fra Bartolommeo himself, who,
+having received money on account, was troubled in conscience lest it
+should remain unfinished. There remained only some figures to put in the
+terrestrial group, all the celestial portions having been finished by
+the Frate; but they are very well drawn figures, with a good deal of
+expression in them. Several are likenesses, amongst whom are Dini and
+his wife, Bugiardini, the painter's pupil, and himself. Most of these
+are now destroyed by the effects of damp.
+
+Mariotto left Fra Bartolommeo's house in S. Pier Gattolini, and took
+a room in Gualfonda--now Via Val Fonda--a street leading towards the
+fortress, built by the Grand Duke Cosimo on the north of the city;
+and here in time quite a school grew up under his tuition. Giuliano
+Bugiardini was his head assistant rather than pupil; Francia Bigio, then
+a boy, Visino, who afterwards went to Hungary, and Innocenzio da Nicola,
+besides Piero, Baccio's brother, were all scholars. Albertinelli's
+Bottega in Val Fonda gave some noble paintings to the world, works
+independently his own, though Fra Bartolommeo's influence is traceable
+in most of them. The finest of these is the _Salutation_, dated
+1503--ordered for the Church of S. Martino, and now the gem of the hall
+of the Old Masters in the Uffizi Gallery--a work which alone has been
+able to mark him for all time as a great master.
+
+So simple is the subject, and yet so grand the proportions, and in the
+figures there is such majesty of maternity and dignity of womanhood! A
+decorated portico, with the heavens behind it, forms the background to
+the two noble women, in one of whom is expressed the gracious sympathy
+of an elder matron with the awful, mysterious joy of the younger.
+
+The colouring, perfectly harmonised, is the most masterly blending of
+a subdued tone with soft yet brilliant and shows a deep study of the
+method of Leonardo.
+
+The predella has an _Annunciation_, _Nativity_, and _Circumcision_; all
+showing the same able style, but more injured by time than the picture.
+
+Another charming painting of this period is the _Nativity_ at the Pitti,
+a round, on panel. The _Madonna_ is not quite so noble as that of the
+_Salutation_, but the limbs of the child are beautifully rounded. There
+is a pretty group of three angels singing in the sky; the landscape is
+as minute in detail as those his old fellow-pupil Piero used to paint in
+Cosimo's studio.
+
+In 1504-5 Fra Bartolommeo called upon him for a deed of friendship,
+which proves that, whatever biographers (building up theories on a word
+or two in Vasari) may say of his want of steadiness, the friend who knew
+him best had supreme trust in him. Santi Pagnini, having been removed to
+Siena as prior, Fra Bartolommeo made Mariotto guardian and instructor
+of his young brother Piero, signing a contract that Mariotto was to have
+the use and management of all estates and possessions of Piero, which
+included several _poderi_ in the country, as well as the house at the
+Porta Romana (S. Pier Gattolini). In return Albertinelli was to keep
+Piero in his house, teach, clothe, and provide for him, not, however,
+being obliged to give him more than "sette (seven) soldi" a month.
+Albertinelli was also to have a mass said yearly in the Church of S.
+Pier Gattolini for the soul of Paolo the muleteer, and to use two pounds
+of wax candles thereat. [Footnote: Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, vol. ii.
+pp. 36, 37.] The contract was signed from 1st January, 1505, and was to
+last till 1st January, 1511. It appears that this brother Piero was a
+great trouble to the Frate, being of a bizarre disposition, and addicted
+to squandering money; he sold some possessions for much less than their
+worth, [Footnote: Private communication from Sig. G. Milanesi.] which
+probably accounts for the singular contract of guardianship. He did not
+show enough talent to become a painter, and took priests' orders later.
+
+About this time Fra Bartolommeo recommenced work, and while he
+was painting the triptych for Donatello's _Madonna_ (the miniature
+_Nativity_ and _Circumcision_ in the Uffizi), Albertinelli was at
+work in the convent of the Certosa, at a _Crucifixion_ in fresco.
+The painting is extant in the chapterhouse, and is a very fair and
+unrestored specimen of his best style. The Virgin and Magdalen are very
+purely conceived figures; the idea of the angels gathering the blood
+falling from the wounded hands of the crucified Saviour is very tender;
+there is a great brightness of colouring, and a greenish landscape
+almost Peruginesque in feeling. Some of his pupils worked with him at
+the Certosa, and nearly brought their master into trouble.
+
+They were not more content with convent fare than was Davide
+Ghirlandajo, when the only delicacy supplied him at Vallombrosa was
+cheese; and to revenge themselves, they stole round the cloister after
+the circular sliding panels by which the rations were sent into the
+monks' cells were filled, and feasted on the meals made ready for the
+good brothers. Great confusion ensued in the convent, the monks accusing
+each other of the theft; but when they found out the real culprits, they
+made a compromise, promising double rations if the artists would hasten
+their work and leave them their daily dole in peace.
+
+The fresco is dated 1506. The same year produced the fine picture now
+in the Louvre, which was painted for the church of S. Trinità on the
+commission of Zanobio del Maestro.
+
+The _Madonna_, stands on a pedestal, with S. Jerome and S. Zenobio
+in front, while episodes from their lives are brought in like distant
+echoes in the background. [Footnote: S. Zenobio was the first bishop of
+Florence, and is the patron saint of that city.]
+
+The nuns of S. Giuliano employed him to paint two pictures, both of
+which are now in the Belle Arti. One is an altarpiece; the _Madonna
+enthroned_, with the Divine Child in her arms. Era Bartolommeo's idea
+of an angel-sustained canopy is here, but the angels hold it up from the
+outside instead of the inside. Before her are S. John the Baptist,
+S. Julian, S. Nicholas, and S. Dominic. The S. Julian has a great
+similarity to the S. Michael of Perugino, and the S. John, by its good
+modelling, shows the result of his studies from the antique in the
+Medici garden.
+
+For the same church he did the curious conventional painting of
+the _Trinity_ on a gold ground. The subject is inartistic, because
+unapproachable; the attempt to paint that which is a deep spiritual
+mystery degrades both the art and the subject; the latter because it
+lowers it to human grasp, the former because it shows its powerlessness
+to shadow forth the infinite. There is beautiful painting in the heads
+of the angels, at the foot of the Cross, but the brilliancy of the gold
+ground is overpowering to the colours, albeit he has balanced it
+by reproducing Cosimo Roselli's red-winged cherubs. Nothing but Fra
+Angelico's delicate tints can bear such a background. No doubt
+Piero, Baccio's brother, helped to lay on this gold, for one of the
+stipulations in the contract with Mariotto was that he was to "metter
+d' oro ed altre cose di mazoneria" (to put on gold and other articles of
+emblazonment).
+
+It has been a great subject of conjecture at what part of his life
+Albertinelli took the rash step of throwing up his art and opening
+a tavern at Porta S. Gallo. Some say it was in his despair at Fra
+Bartolommeo having taken the vows, but this is disproved by his having
+at that time finished the _Last Judgment_, and taken pupils in Val
+Fonda. Others assert that it was at the breaking up of the last
+partnership in 1513, but there is no hiatus in his work at that time,
+existing paintings being dated in 1513 and the following years till his
+death, three years after.
+
+Vasari, though not to be depended on in regard to dates--chronology not
+being his forte--is generally right in the gossip and stories of the
+lives near his own time, and it is by collateral evidence from his pages
+that we are able to fix with more certainty 1508 or 1509 as the time of
+this episode in Albertinelli's life. In 1507 we find him as an artist
+helping to value his friend's picture, and mediating between the convent
+and Bernardo del Bianco. [Footnote: Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. iii.
+chap. xvii. p. 544.] Now, in the 'Life of Andrea del Sarto,' we read
+that Francia Bigio, Albertinelli's pupil, made the acquaintance of
+Andrea while studying the Cartoons in the Hall of the Council (this was
+from 1506 to 1508), and as their friendship increased, Andrea confided
+to Francia Bigio that he could no longer endure the eccentricities of
+Piero di Cosimo, and determined to seek a home for himself, and that
+Francia Bigio being also alone--his master Mariotto Albertinelli _having
+abandoned the art of painting_--they determined to share a studio
+and rooms. [Footnote: Vasari, vol. iii. p. 182.] The first works the
+partners undertook were the frescoes of the Scalzo and the Servi, which
+were begun in 1509. Thus the date is tolerably certain, especially as a
+gap occurs in Albertinelli's works at this time.
+
+Sig. Gaetano Milanesi's researches in the Archives have thrown a new
+light on Mariotto's motives, which were not entirely connected with
+art; it was not that he was discouraged by adverse criticism, nor wholly
+that, as time divided him from his friend, he felt he could produce
+no great work away from his influence, but it was partly that he had
+married a wife named Antonia, whose father kept an inn at S. Gallo.
+It is possible the tavern came to him by way of _dot_, and the above
+reasons making him discontented with art for a time, might have induced
+him to carry on the business himself. Sig. Milanesi says a document
+exists of a contract in which Mariotto's name is connected with a
+tavern, but that he has never been able to retrace it since the first
+time he found it. It is his opinion that the whole story arose from the
+fact of the wife's family possessing this wine shop, and his connection
+with it in that way.
+
+But though Albertinelli passed off his pseudo-hostdom with bravado,
+talking very wittily about it, the artistic vein was too strong within
+him to be subdued; he soon gave up the flask and returned to the brush,
+for in 1509, when his quondam pupil, Francia Bigio, was busy at the
+Servi, we again find Mariotto's hand in a painting of the _Madonna_. The
+Virgin, holding a pomegranate in her hand, supports with the other the
+Child, who stands on a parapet, and clings to the bosom of his mother's
+dress for support, in a truly natural way; the infant Baptist stands
+by. The painting, signed, and dated 1509, is in the Fitzwilliam Museum,
+Cambridge, but has been injured by repainting. In spite of this, Messrs.
+Crowe and Cavalcaselle believe they perceive Bugiardini's hand in it.
+
+In 1510 Albertinelli began one of his masterpieces, the _Annunciation_
+for the company of S. Zenobio, now in the Belle Arti. All his zeal for
+art was reawakened, he flung himself _con amore_ into this work, which,
+though in oil on panel, was painted on the spot where it was intended to
+be placed, that the lights might be managed with the best effect. He was
+imbued with Leonardo da Vinci's principle, that the greatest relief
+and force are to be combined with softness, and wishing to bring this
+combination to a perfection which never before had been reached, he
+depended greatly on the natural light to further his design. [Footnote:
+Vasari, vol. ii. p. 469.]
+
+The picture, although a great work of art, and the most laboured of
+all his paintings, failed to satisfy the artist. He tried various
+experiments, painting in and painting out, but never reaching his own
+ideal. According to Leonardo, he was proving himself a good artist, one
+of his principles being, "when his (an artist's) knowledge and light
+surpass his work so that he is not satisfied with himself or his
+endeavours, it is a happy omen." [Footnote: Leonardo da Vinci, Treatise
+on Painting.]
+
+The work as it stands is a noble one, though darkened by time having
+brought out the black pigments used in the shades. The background is an
+intricate piece of architecture with vaulted roof, showing that he
+too had profited by Raphael's instructions in perspective to Fra
+Bartolommeo.
+
+The Virgin is a tender sweet figure; indeed no artist has given more
+gracious dignity to womanhood than Albertinelli, although his detractors
+say his life showed no great respect for it. Above, the Almighty is
+seen in a yellow light with a circle of angels and seraphs around. It
+is strange how the realistic painters stopped at nothing, not even the
+representation of the eternal in a human form. Is not this the reason
+why art ceased about this time to be the interpreter of religion, and
+found its true mission in being the interpreter of nature? Who can draw
+one soul? How much more impossible then to depict the incomprehensible
+soul in which all others have their being? The utmost we can do is to
+give the indication of the spirit in the expression of a face, and that
+so imperfectly that not two beholders read it alike. Study Perugino and
+Raphael, see how they raise human nature and etherealize it till we see
+the divinity of soul in the faces of their saints and martyrs. But the
+moment they try to depict the Almighty, or even his angels, they fall at
+once below humanity.
+
+But to return to the _Annunciation_ of Albertinelli. His impetuous
+temper betrayed him even here; he fell into a dispute with his patrons,
+who refused to pay the price he asked. The usual "trial by his peers"
+was resorted to, Perugino, Granacci, and Ridolfo Ghirlandajo were called
+into council to value it according to its merits.
+
+On completing this picture the events we have related in the last
+chapter took place, Fra Bartolommeo returned from Venice with his
+enterprise renewed, and the convent partnership was commenced.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CONVENT PARTNERSHIP. A.D. 1510--1513.
+
+
+We now come to the studio of S. Marco, where the two friends, who had
+dreamed together as boys, and worked together as youths, now laboured
+jointly as men, bringing to light some of the finest works of art that
+remain to us. During these three years Albertinelli's star seems merged
+in that of his senior, his hand is to be recognised in the lower parts
+of a few altarpieces; but it is always difficult to distinguish the two
+styles.
+
+It was a very busy atelier, for they had many patrons. Bugiardini was
+still Mariotto's head assistant, and Fra Paolino, and one or two other
+monks, worked under Fra Bartolommeo, besides pupils of both, among whom
+were Gabriele Rustici and Benedetto Cianfanini.
+
+The studio was on the part of the convent between the cloister and Via
+del Maglio, [Footnote: Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, vol. ii. p. 69.] and
+we can quite picture its interior. There stands the lay figure on which
+Fra Bartolommeo draped the garments that take such majestic folds in his
+works; [Footnote: Fra Bartolommeo was the inventor of the jointed lay
+figure.] there are several casts and models in different parts of the
+room; grand cartoons in charcoal hang on the walls, like those we see
+to this day in the Uffizi and Belle Arti. So many of these masterly
+sketches are the Frate's and so few are Mariotto's that we may presume
+the former was in most instances the designer. And to what perfection he
+carried design! Not a figure was drawn except its lines harmonised with
+the geometric rhythm in the artist's mind. His groups fall by nature
+into kaleidoscopic figures of circles, triangles, ellipses, crosses, &c.
+Not a cartoon was sketched in which the lights and shadows were not as
+gradated and finished as a painting, although they were merely drawn
+with charcoal. The following was the method of work in the "bottega."
+The panels were prepared with a coating of plaster of Paris, over
+which, when dry, a coat of under colour, ground in oil, was passed. The
+preparing of the panels fell to the work of one of the monk scholars,
+Fra Andrea.[Footnote: The books of the convent have a note of payment to
+Fra Bartolommeo for 20th March, 1512, "per parte di lavoro di Fra Andrea
+converse per mettere d'oro, et ingessare alle tavole nella bottega in
+diversi lavori" (Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, lib. ii. chap. in. p. 70).]
+Then the master made his sketch in white, or "sgraffito" (i.e. graven
+on the plaster), as in the architectural lines of the pictures of patron
+saints in the Uffizi, and the _Marriage of S. Catherine_ in the Pitti
+Palace; he also put in the shadows in monochrome. But the assistants,
+who were skilled artists, were called to put broad level tints of local
+colour on the buildings, &c., the master himself finishing the faces. No
+doubt Albertinelli was often deputed to the study of the lay figure and
+its drapery. Where he assisted, the monogram, a cross with two rings and
+the joint names, marked the work, as en a panel of 1510 in Vienna, and
+another at Geneva.
+
+Fra Bartolommeo only imitated Leonardo in his intense force and soft
+gradations; the general thinness of colour is opposed to his system. He
+followed him, however, in his method of painting his shadows with the
+brush, instead of "hatching" them; he used the same yellowish ground,
+and "sfumato," [Footnote: Eastlake's _Materials for a History of Oil
+Painting_, vol. ii. chap. iv.] _i.e._ the imperceptible softening of the
+transition in half-lights and shadows; it was effected by glazes, and is
+not adapted to a thin substance. The great mistake in Fra Bartolommeo's
+system was the preparing his paintings like cartoons, and using
+asphaltum or lamp-black for outlines and shadows; this in process of
+time destroys the super-colour, and gives a general blackness to the
+painting.
+
+The same kind of talk went on here as in modern studios. When the
+frame-maker came, Fra Bartolommeo would be vexed to see how much of his
+work was hidden beneath the massive cornice, and would vow to dispense
+with frames altogether, which he did in his _S. Sebastian_ and _S.
+Mark_, by painting an architectural niche round the subject like a
+carving in relief.
+
+The first work begun at the convent studio was the picture for Father
+Dalgano of Venice, the subject of which is the _Eternal Father in
+Heaven_, surrounded by seraphs and angels. Perhaps in this we have the
+source of the motive of Albertinelli's _Annunciation_. The colouring is
+more brilliant than any of the Frate's works before his visit to Venice.
+Vasari says that in this picture Giorgione himself could not have
+surpassed him in brilliancy. The saints, although nearly level with the
+ground, are given celestial rank by the cherubs and clouds below them.
+Fra Bartolommeo was dissatisfied with his angels, which seemed merely
+lovely children, and seeking other forms, he thought to picture them
+better under shapes which at a distance seem only clouds, but nearer are
+full of angels' faces, as in the _S. Bernard_. But this idea, not having
+aesthetic beauty, was also abandoned. [Footnote: Padre Marchese, _I
+Puristi ed Accademici_.]
+
+The monks of S. Pietro at Murano did not hasten to claim their picture,
+but sent two friars to negotiate about the price; they failed to agree,
+and the work is now in the Church of S. Romano in Lucca.
+
+Lucca has another exquisite picture of the same year in the Cathedral
+of S. Martino, a _Madonna and Child_--a lovely ideal of joyful
+infancy--beneath a veil suspended above her head by two angels. S. John
+Baptist and S. Stephen support this airy composition like pillars, their
+figures showing in strong relief against the dark shades; the whole
+picture is intensely soft, and yet the outlines are perfectly clear.
+This is valued at sixty ducats in the Libri di San Marco.
+
+Next followed the _Virgin and Child with four Saints_, in S. Marco,
+which is so fine that it has been taken for a Raphael, although, owing
+to the use of lamp-black, it has now become very much darkened.
+
+The _Holy Family_ which he painted for Filippo di Averardo Salviati,
+and which is now in Earl Cowper's collection at Panshanger, is an almost
+Raphaelesque work, and attains the greatest excellence in art. The
+composition is his favourite triangle, touched in with the flowing lines
+of the mother seated on the ground with the two children before her. S.
+Joseph is in the background. The greatest softness of flesh tints must
+have been perceptible when new, for, "in spite of the abrasions produced
+by time, the delicate tones brought out by transparent glazes fused one
+over another are apparent." The landscape with an echo subject of
+the flight into Egypt is thought by Crowe and Cavalcaselle to be by
+Albertinelli.
+
+In 1510 the partners had a large order from Giuliano da Gagliano, who,
+on the 2nd November, 1510, and 14th January, 1511, paid, in two rates,
+the sum of 154 ducats. The picture, which is Fra Bartolommeo's own
+painting, unfortunately cannot be traced.
+
+In 1511 a long list of works are enumerated--a _Nativity_, valued two
+ducats, a _Christ bearing the Cross_, and an _Annunciation_, sold to the
+Gonfaloniere for six ducats--pictures which are dispersed in England,
+Pavia, &c.; but the masterpiece of the time is the _Marriage of S.
+Catherine_, now in the Louvre. The Florentine government bought it for
+300 ducats in 1512, to present to Jacques Hurault, Bishop of Autun, who
+came to Florence as envoy of Louis XII. He left it to his cathedral
+at Autun, from whence, at the Revolution, it passed to the Louvre.
+[Footnote: Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, lib. iii. ch. iv. p. 77. Crowe
+and Cavalcaselle, _History of Painting_, vol. iii. chap. xiii. p. 452.]
+Before it was sent away, Fra Bartolommeo made a replica of it, which
+is now in the Pitti Palace. There is his favourite canopy supported by
+angels; in this case they are beautifully foreshortened. The Virgin is
+seated on a pedestal, holding by one arm an exquisitely moulded child
+Jesus of about four years old, who is espousing S. Catherine of Siena,
+kneeling at His feet on the left. A semicircle of saints group on each
+side of the Virgin, and two angels, with musical instruments, are at
+her feet; the upturned face of one is exquisitely foreshortened. The
+S. George in armour is a powerful figure; and in S. Bartholomew, on
+the left, is the same grand feeling which he afterwards brought to
+perfection in S. Mark. The grace of the Virgin's figure is not to be
+surpassed; if Raphael's Madonnas have more sentiment, this has more
+dignified grace. He has remembered Leonardo's precept, "that the two
+figures of a group should not look the same way"; the contrast of the
+flowing lines in these two forms is very lovely. The same contrast of
+lines, and yet balance of form, is carried out in the two S. Catherines
+who form the pyramid on each side of her, and in the varied characters
+of the encircling group of saints. The deleterious use of lampblack has
+spoiled the colouring; it, moreover, hangs in a bad light at the Pitti
+Palace.
+
+The original subject at the Louvre differs only in a few particulars
+from this--the Virgin's hand is on the child's head instead of his arm,
+and there are trifling differences in the grouping of the saints,
+the semicircle being more rigidly kept. In this the flesh is thin
+and uncracked, seeming imbedded in the surrounding colours; the lake
+draperies are laid so thinly on the light ground, that the sketch can be
+seen through the colour. [Footnote: Eastlake, _Materials for a History
+of Oil Painting_, vol. ii. chap. iv. Crowe and Cavalcaselle speak of the
+two paintings as unconnected with each other, and mention the Pitti one
+as having unaccountably returned there after having been given to some
+bishop. Is it not possible that the gift to a bishop refers to the
+painting in the Louvre, and that the other is the replica spoken of by
+Vasari, vol. ii. p. 452?]
+
+There is a fine painting in the church of S. Caterina of Pisa, in
+the chapel of the Mastiani family, Michele Mastiani having given the
+commission, and paid thirty ducats, in October, 1511. It represents
+the _Madonna and Child_ seated on a base; the action is quiet and
+yet vivacious; she is supported on each side by S. Peter and S. Paul,
+figures as large as life, and even more noble than the ones in Rome. The
+colouring has been much injured by a fire in the seventeenth century,
+but is robust and harmonious. It is dated 1511.
+
+On the 26th of November, 1510, Fra Bartolommeo had a commission from
+Pier Soderini, then Gonfaloniere, to paint a picture for the Council
+Hall. This was an unfortunate order; for Michelangelo and Leonardo da
+Vinci had both been commissioned, neither of them finishing the works.
+Fra Bartolommeo's forms the third uncompleted painting; it exists still
+in the form of a half prepared picture, the design being only shadowed
+in monochrome, and this in spite of the payment on account of 100 gold
+ducats in October, 1513. [Footnote: See Padre Marchese, _Memorie_,
+documenti 5 and 6, vol ii. p. 603.] The reason of this is difficult
+to assign, but it might lie in the fact that in 1512 Pier Soderini was
+deposed and exiled by Giuliano de' Medici, who assumed the government.
+Another reason may have been the failure of Fra Bartolommeo's health
+after his journey to Rome.
+
+In 1512 Santi Pagnini came back from Siena as prior of S. Marco, and he
+having no love for Albertinelli, and perhaps a too jealous affection
+for the artist Monk, caused the partnership to be dissolved, much to
+Mariotto's sorrow. The stock, of which a full list is given by Padre
+Marchese, was divided, each taking the pictures in which they had most
+to do. The properties--amongst which were the lay figures, easels,
+casts, sketches, blocks of porphyry to grind colours on, &c. [Footnote:
+Padre Marchese, vol. ii. pp. 184, 185.]--were to be left for Fra
+Bartolommeo's use till his death, when they were to be divided between
+his heirs and Albertinelli.
+
+Mariotto returned disheartened to paint in his solitary studio. A
+specimen of this period is the _Adam and Eve_, now at Castle Howard,
+which is said to have been sketched in by Fra Bartolommeo. Eve stands
+beneath the serpent-entwined tree, hesitating between the demon's
+temptations and Adam's persuasions; the feeling and action are perfectly
+expressed, the landscape is minute, but has plenty of atmosphere and
+good colouring. In the same collection is a _Sacrifice of Abraham_, in
+his best style. The drawing of the father, reluctantly holding his knife
+to the throat of the boy, is extremely true. Munich possesses a fine
+_Annunciation_. Characteristic saints support the composition on each
+side, the nude S. Sebastian being a markworthy study; an angel at his
+side presents the palm of martyrdom. The picture has suffered much from
+bad cleaning.
+
+In March, 1513, Albertinelli was commissioned by the Medici to paint
+their arms, in honour of Leo X.'s elevation to the papacy. He made a
+fine allegorical circular picture, in which the arms were supported by
+the figures of Faith, Hope, and Charity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CLOSE OF LIFE. A.D. 1514--1517.
+
+
+It is probable that the dissolution of partnership marked the time of
+Fra Bartolommeo's visit to Rome. Fra Mariano Fetti, once a lay brother
+of S. Marco, who had gone over to the Medici after Savonarola's death,
+and had kept so much in favour with Pope Leo X. as to obtain the office
+of the Seals (del Piombo), [Footnote: An office for appending seals
+to papal documents. Fra Mariano Fetti was elected to it in 1514, after
+Bramante, the architect; Sebastiano del Piombo succeeded him.] was
+pleased to be considered a patron of art; and welcoming Fra Bartolommeo
+to Rome, he gave him a commission for two large figures of S. Peter and
+S. Paul for his church of S. Silvestro. The cartoons of these pictures
+are now in the Belle Arti of Florence; they are grand and majestic
+figures, admirably draped. S. Peter holds his keys and a book; S.
+Paul rests on his sword. In executing them in colour, he made some
+improvements, especially in the head and hand of S. Peter, but he did
+not remain long enough in Rome to finish them. "The colour of the first
+(S. Peter) is reddish and rather opaque, the shadows of the head being
+taken up afresh, and the extremities being by another painter. The head
+of the second (S. Paul) is corrected ... but the tone is transparent,
+and the execution exclusively that of Fra Bartolommeo. Whoever may have
+been employed on the S. Peter, we do not fancy Raphael to have been
+that person." This is the opinion of Crowe and Cavalcaselle, [Footnote:
+_History of Painting_, vol. iii. chap. xiii. p. 460.] who, however, seem
+to have little faith in any works of the Frate at Rome. Against this we
+have the chronicles of quaint old Vasari and Rosini; besides Baldinucci
+(ch. iv. p. 83), who says, "Raphael gave great testimony of his esteem
+when, in after years, he employed his own brush in Rome to finish a work
+begun by Fra Bartolommeo in that city and left imperfect."
+
+His reason for leaving it imperfect was that of ill-health, the air of
+Rome not agreeing with him. It seems he brought home _malaria_, which
+never entirely left his system, the low fever returning every year, and
+being only mitigated by a change to mountain air. He was well enough
+at times to resume painting, but never in full health again. That very
+summer he was sent to the Hospice of Sta. Maria Maddalena in Pian di
+Mugnone, "dove pure non stette in ozio," [Footnote: Rosini, _Storia
+della Pittura_, chap, xxvii. p. 245.] where he did not remain idle.
+The Hospice stands on a high hill, just the place for Roman fever to
+disappear as if by magic for a time, and the patient, relieved of
+his lassitude, set to work with energy, aided by Fra Paolino and Fra
+Agostino. Many of his frescoes still remain, one of which is a beautiful
+_Madonna_, on the wall of the infirmary, which has since been sawn away
+from the wall and placed in the students' chapel in San Marco, Florence.
+[Footnote: A document of the Hospice records these paintings, and dates
+them 10th of July, 1514. Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, &c., vol. ii. p.
+610.]
+
+He returned to Florence for the winter, and with renewed vigour produced
+his _San Sebastian_, a splendid study from the nude, which shows the
+influence upon him of Michelangelo's paintings in Rome. The picture
+was hung in San Marco, but its influence not proving elevating to the
+sensuous minds of the Florentines, it was removed to the chapter-house,
+and Gio Battista della Palla, the dealer who bought so many of the best
+pictures of the time, purchased it to send to the King of France. Its
+subsequent fate is not known, although Monsieur Alaffre, of Toulouse,
+boasts of its possession. He says his father bought three paintings
+which, in the time of the Revolution, had been taken from the chapel of
+a royal villa near Paris [Footnote: Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, &c., vol.
+ii. note p. 119.], one of which is the _S. Sebastian_. In design and
+attitude it corresponds to the one described by Vasari, the saint being
+in a niche, surrounded by a double cornice. The left arm is bound; the
+right, with its cord hanging, is upraised in attitude of the faith, so
+fully expressed in the beautiful face. Three arrows are fixed in the
+body, which is nude except a slight veil across the loins; an angel,
+also nude, holds the palm to him. Connoisseurs do not think this
+painting equal in merit to the other works of Fra Bartolommeo. It is
+true it may have been overrated at the time, for the Frate's chief
+excellence lay in the grandeur of his drapery; the test of authenticity
+for a nude study from him would lie more in the colouring and handling
+than in form.
+
+In the early part of 1515 Fra Bartolommeo went to pay his old friend
+Santi Pagnini, the Oriental scholar, a visit at the convent of San
+Romano, in Lucca, of which he was now prior, passing by Pistoja on
+February 17th to sign a contract for an altar-piece to be placed in the
+church of San Domenico--a commission from Messer Jacopo Panciatichi. The
+price was fixed at 100 gold ducats, and the subject to be the Madonna
+and Child, with SS. Paul, John Baptist, and Sebastian. On his arrival
+at Lucca he was soon busy with his great work, the _Madonna della
+Misericordia_, for the church of San Romano. The composition of this
+is full and harmonious. A populace of all ages and conditions, grouped
+around the throne of the Madonna, beg her prayers; she, standing up,
+seems to gather all their supplications in her hands and offer them up
+to heaven, from which, as a vision, Christ appears from a mass of
+clouds in act of benediction. Amongst the crowd of supplicants are some
+exquisite groups. Sublime inspiration and powerful expression are shown
+in the whole work. On his return he stayed again at Pistoja, where
+he painted a fresco of a _Madonna_ on a wall of the convent of San
+Domenico; this, which has since been sawn from the wall, is at present
+in the church of the same convent, and though much injured, is a very
+light and tender bit of colouring and expression. It would seem that the
+altar-piece for the same church, spoken of above, was never finished, as
+no traces of it are to be found.
+
+In October, 1515, we again find him at Pian di Mugnone; no doubt the
+summer heats had induced a return of his fever. Here, again improving in
+health, he painted a charming _Annunciation_ in fresco, full of life and
+eagerness on the part of the angel, and joy on the Virgin. He did not
+remain long, for before the end of the autumn he returned to visit the
+home of his youth and see his paternal uncle, Giusto, at Lastruccio,
+near Prato. We can imagine the meeting between him and his relatives,
+and how the little Paolo, son of Vito, being told to guess who he was,
+said, "Bis Zio Bartolommeo," [Footnote: Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, &c.,
+vol. ii. chap. vii. pp. 139, 140.] for which he was much applauded.
+And when all the country relatives hoped to see him again soon, how the
+Frate said that would be uncertain, because the King of France had sent
+for him, and with what awe and family pride they would have looked
+at him! But instead of going to France for the glory of art, he
+was returning to Florence to sorrow. His life-long friend, Mariotto
+Albertinelli, had been brought home on a litter from La Quercia, near
+Viterbo, and now lay on his death-bed; and what his life had lacked in
+religion, the prayers of his friend would go far to atone for at his
+death.
+
+While Fra Bartolommeo had been ailing, Albertinelli had also paid his
+visit to the great city, and seen the two great rivals there. He went
+from Viterbo, where he had been to finish colouring a work of the
+Frate's left unfinished, and also to paint some frescoes in the convent
+of La Quercia, near that town. Being so near Borne, he was seized with a
+great desire to see it, and left his picture for that purpose. Probably
+Fra Bartolommeo had given him an introduction to his friend and
+patron, for Fra Mariano Fetti gave Albertinelli a commission to paint a
+_Marriage of S. Catherine_ for his church, which he completed, and then
+left Rome at once. Nothing is known of the impressions made on him by
+the works of the two great masters, and unfortunately his death occurred
+too soon after for his own style to have given any evidence of their
+influence.
+
+A Giostra, at Viterbo, proved a very strong attraction to his
+pleasure-loving mind. This "Giostra," which the translators of Vasari
+seem to find so "obscure," [Footnote: Vasari's _Lives_, vol. ii. p.
+470.] was no doubt one of those festivals revived by the Medici, in
+which mounted cavaliers ride with a lance at a suspended Saracen's head,
+striking it at full gallop. Desirous of appearing to advantage before
+the eyes of her whom he had elected his queen, he forgot his mature age,
+and rushed into the jousts with all the energies of a youth, but alas!
+fell ill from over-exertion. Fearing the malarious air was not good
+for him, he had a litter made, and was taken to Florence, where Fra
+Bartolommeo placed himself at his bedside, soothing his last moments,
+and leading him as far heavenward as he could. When Albertinelli died,
+on the 5th of November, 1515, his friend followed him to an honourable
+interment in S. Piero Maggiore.
+
+After Albertinelli's death, the Frate soared to greater heights of
+genius than before.
+
+The year 1516 marks the birth of his grandest masterpieces, first the
+picture in the Pitti Palace called by Cavalcaselle a _Resurrection_, but
+which is more truly an allegorical impersonation of the Saviour. It was
+ordered by a rich merchant, Salvadore Billi, to place in a chapel
+which Pietro Roselli had adorned with marbles in the church of the
+"Annunciata." He paid 100 ducats in gold for it.
+
+In its original state the picture was a complete allegory of _Christ
+as the centre of Religion_, between two prophets in heaven, and four
+apostles, two at each side--beneath him two angels support the world.
+The prophets have been removed, and are placed in the Tribune of the
+Uffizi; thus the picture as it stands loses half its meaning. The Christ
+is a fine nude figure standing in a niche, and in it Fra Bartolommeo has
+solved the problem of obtaining complete relief almost in monochrome, so
+little do the lights of the flesh tints, and the warm yellowish tinge of
+the background differ from each other. All the positive colour is in
+the drapery of the saints, one in red and green, and another in red and
+blue. The two angels are exquisitely drawn, and contrast well in their
+natural innocence with the sentimental pair in Raphael's _Madonna of the
+Baldacchino_ on the same wall of the Pitti Palace.
+
+San Marco was rich in frescoes of the _Madonna and Child_, two of which
+are still in the chapel of the convent, and two in the Belle Arti. Some
+of these are charming in expression, the children clinging round the
+mother's neck in a true childish _abandon_ of affection. What a tender
+feeling these monk artists had for the spirit of maternity! Perhaps by
+being debarred from the contemplation of maternal love in its humanity,
+they more clearly comprehended its divinity. Look at the little
+round-backed nestling child in Fra Angelico's _Madonna della Stella_,
+imperfect as it is in form, the whole spirit of love is in it. He does
+not give only the mother-love for the child, but the child-love for
+the mother, which is more divine, and the same feeling is seen in the
+_Madonna_ of Fra Bartolommeo.
+
+This year, 1516, also marks a journey to a hermitage of his order at
+Lecceto, between Florence and Pisa. Here he painted a _Deposition from
+the Cross_ on the wall of the Hospice, and two heads of Christ on two
+tiles above the doors.
+
+A great many of his works are in private collections in Florence; one of
+the most lovely is the _Pietà_, painted for Agnolo Doni, and now in the
+Corsini Gallery at Rome.
+
+All this time the great painting of the _Enthronement of the Virgin_,
+ordered by Pier Soderini, before his exile, was still unfinished. He
+seems to have taken it in hand again about this time, but being attacked
+with another access of fever, again left it, and the painting, shadowed
+in with black, remains in the Uffizi. Lanzi writes of it that, imperfect
+as it is, it may be regarded as a true lesson in art, and bears the
+same relation to painting as the clay model to the finished statue,
+the genius of the inventor being impressed upon it. Messrs. Crowe and
+Cavalcaselle [Footnote: _History of Painting_, vol. iii. chap. xiii.
+p. 455.] call this a _Conception_, but Vasari's old name of the _Patron
+Saints of Florence_ seems to fit it best. S. John the Baptist, S.
+Reparata, S. Zenobio, &c., stand in an adoring group around the heavenly
+powers, S. Anna above the Virgin and infant Christ forming a
+charming pyramidal group in the midst. The whole thing is one of Fra
+Bartolommeo's richest compositions. The centre of the three monks on the
+left is said to be a portrait of Fra Bartolommeo himself, and to be
+the original from which the only known portrait of him is taken (_see
+Frontispiece_). Fra Bartolommeo left another work also unfinished, an
+apotheosis of a saint, which is now at Panshanger. This is supposed
+to have been a small ideal prepared for a picture to celebrate the
+canonisation of S. Antonino, which Leo X. had almost promised the
+brethren of S. Marco on his triumphant entry in 1515. The work, if
+it had been painted in the larger form, would have been a perfect
+masterpiece of composition, "a very Beethoven symphony in colour," if
+we may judge from the sketch at Panshanger, where a living crowd groups
+round the bier of the archbishop, and life, earnestness, harmony, and
+richness, are all intense.
+
+So ill was Fra Bartolommeo in 1517 that he was ordered to take the baths
+at San Filippo, thence he went for the last time to Pian di Mugnone,
+where he painted a _Vision of the Saviour to Mary Magdalen_, above the
+door of the chapel. The two figures, nearly life-size, are at the door
+of the cave sepulchre. Mary has just recognised her Lord, and in her
+ecstasy flings herself forward on her knees before him. The Saviour is a
+dignified figure semi-nude, with a white veil wrapped around him.
+
+In the Pitti Palace, a charming _Pietà_ of Fra Bartolommeo's occupies a
+place near the _Pietà_ of Andrea del Sarto, the two pictures forming
+a most interesting contrast of style. The kneeling Virgin and S.
+John support the head of the prostrate Saviour, S. Catherine and Mary
+Magdalen weep at his feet, the latter in an agony of grief crouches
+prone on the ground hiding her face. The colouring is extremely rich,
+broad masses of full-tone melting softly into deep shadows. The handling
+in the flesh-tones of the dead Saviour, as well as the modelling of
+form, are most masterly. It is generally supposed that this was the
+picture which Bugiardini is said to have coloured after the master's
+death; but there is much divergence among Italian authors both as to
+whether this was the painting spoken of, and also as to the meaning
+of Vasari's words, he using the phrase "finished" in one place, and
+"coloured" in another. For charm of colouring and depth of expression,
+the _Pietà_ is the most lovely of all the Frate's works; therefore
+Bugiardini who was _mediocre_, could not have outdone his great master.
+It was not _coloured_ by him. Bocchi [Footnote: Bocchi, _Bellezze di
+Firenze_, p. 304.] says there were two other figures, S. Peter and S.
+Paul, in the picture, where a meaningless black shadow stretches across
+the background; but they were erased by the antique restorer because
+they were "troppo deboli." Is it not likely that if Bugiardini had any
+hand in the work, it was to finish these figures?
+
+Returning in the autumn to Florence, Fra Bartolommeo caught a severe
+cold, the effects of which were heightened by eating fruit, and after
+four days' extreme illness he died on October 8th, 1517, aged 42.
+
+The monks felt his death intensely, and buried him with great honour in
+San Marco.
+
+He left to art the most valuable legacy possible--a long list of
+masterpieces in which religious feeling is expressed in the very
+highest language. In all his works there is not a line or tint which
+transgresses against either the sentiment of devotion, or the rules of
+art. He stands for ever, almost on a level with the great trio of the
+culmination, "possessing Leonardo's grace of colour and more than
+his industry, Michelangelo's force with more softness, and Raphael's
+sentiment with more devotion;" yet with just the inexpressible want of
+that supernatural genius which would have placed him above them all. His
+legacy to the world is a series of lessons from the very first setting
+of his ideal on paper to its finished development. The germ exists in
+the charcoal sketches at the Belle Arti and Uffizi; the under-shadowing
+of the subject is seen in the _Patron Saints_ at the Uffizi.
+
+Many of his drawings are not to be traced. Some were used by Fra
+Paolino, his pupil, who at his death passed them to Suor Plautilla
+Nelli, a nun in Sta. Caterina, Florence (born 1523, died 1587). When
+Baldinucci wrote his work, he said 500 of these were in the possession
+of Cavaliere Gaburri.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+PART I.
+
+SCHOLARS OF FRA BARTOLOMMEO.
+
+
+Of these, little more than the names have come down to us. Vasari speaks
+of Benedetto Cianfanini, Gabbriele Rustici, and Fra Paolo Pistojese;
+Padre Marchese mentions two monks, Fra Andrea and Fra Agostino. Of
+these, the two first never became proficient, and have left no works
+behind them. Fra Andrea seems to have been more a journeyman than
+scholar, being employed to prepare the panels and lay on the gilding.
+Fra Agostino assisted his master, and Fra Paolo in the subordinate parts
+of a few frescoes, especially at Luco in the Mugnone. Fra Paolo is
+the most known, but chiefly as a far-off imitator of Fra Bartolommeo,
+without his mellowness of execution. His pictures are mostly from his
+master's designs, which were left him as a legacy, and this ensures a
+good composition.
+
+He was born at Pistoja in 1490; his father, Bernardino d' Antonio del
+Signoraccio, a second-rate artist, taught him the first principles
+of art. His knowledge of drawing caused him to be noticed by Fra
+Bartolommeo, when at a very early age he entered the order. He was
+removed from Prato to San Marco, Florence, in 1503; and here he found
+another friend who assisted his artistic tendencies. This was Fra
+Ambrogio della Robbia, [Footnote: Padre Marchese, Memorie, &c., lib. in.
+chap. ii. p. 246.] who taught him to model in clay; a specimen of his
+work exists in the Church of Sta. Maddalena in Pian di Mugnone, where
+are two statues of S. Domenico and Mary Magdalen by his hand.
+
+His best work is a _Crucifixion_ at Siena, dated 1516, which has been
+thought to be Fra Bartolommeo's; but though that master was asked to go
+and paint it as a memorial of a certain Messer Cherubino Ridolfo,
+his many occupations prevented his accepting the commission, and his
+disciples, Fra Paolo and Fra Agostino, went in his place. [Footnote:
+Padre Marchese, Memorie, &c., lib. in. chap. ii. p. 251.] Possibly the
+master supplied the design, which is very harmonious. The Virgin and S.
+John stand on each side of the cross, and Saint Catherine of Siena and
+Mary Magdalen are prostrate before it. One or two of the female saints
+are pleasing, but the nude figure of Christ is hard, exaggerated, and
+faulty in drawing.
+
+The artists got thirty-five lire for the work, though the record in the
+archives allows that it was worth more. There is an _Assumption_ in the
+Belle Arti of Florence, of which the design is Fra Bartolommeo's, but
+the colouring Fra Paolo's. It was painted for the Dominican monks at
+Santa Maria del Sasso, near Bibbiena. The colouring is hard and weak,
+the shadows heavy, and not fused well in the half tints. Two monks on
+the left are tolerably life-like, probably they were drawn from living
+models; the S. Catherine on the right is very inferior.
+
+The Belle Arti also possesses a _Deposition from the Cross_, which Fra
+Bartolommeo had sketched out and left uncoloured at Pian di Mugnone. In
+1519 Fra Paolo finished it, and it presents the usual disparity between
+the composition and colouring, the former being good, the latter weak
+and crude. His best known works are a Nativity in the Palazzo Borghese,
+a _Madonna and Child with S. John Baptist_ in the Sciarra Colonna, also
+in Rome; a _Madonna and Child with S. John_ in the Corsini Gallery,
+Florence, and another of the same subject in the Antinori Palace. He
+painted also at San Gimignano, Pian di Mugnone, and Pistoja, and died of
+sunstroke in 1547.
+
+He had as a follower a Suor Plautilla Nelli, born 1523, daughter of a
+noble Florentine, Piero di Luca Nelli. She took the vows at the age
+of fourteen, in the convent of S. Caterina di Siena, in Via Larga (now
+Cavour), Florence. Her sister, Suor Petronilla, in the same convent,
+was a writer, and her life of Savonarola is still extant. Suor Plautilla
+taught herself to paint. Legend says, that in order to study the nude
+for a Christ, she drew from the corpse of a nun--which might account for
+the weak stiffness of her design. Fra Paolo, though there is no record
+of his having taught her, left her as a legacy the designs and cartoons
+of Fra Bartolommeo, one of which, the _Pietà_, she has evidently made
+use of in the painting in the Belle Arti. The grouping is that of the
+_Pietà_ of Fra Bartolommeo, now in the Pitti, of which she must have
+had the original sketch, for she has put in the two saints in the
+background, which have been painted out in that of the Frate, but we
+will give her the entire credit of the colouring, which is extremely
+crude; the contrasting blues and yellows are in inharmonious tones, the
+shading harsh, and the whole picture wanting in chiaroscuro. The Corsini
+Gallery, Florence, has a _Virgin and Child_ by her.
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+
+The scholars of Mariotto Albertinelli were much more important in the
+annals of art, the principal ones being Bugiardini, Francia Bigio,
+Visino, and Innocenza d' Imola.
+
+Giuliano Bugiardini should be called the assistant rather than the
+scholar of Albertinelli, being older than his master. He was born in
+1471 in a suburb outside the Via Faenza, Florence, and was placed in
+the shop of Domenico Ghirlandajo, where his acquaintance with
+Michelangelo--begun in the Medici Gardens--ripened into intimacy, and
+he was employed by him in the Sistine Chapel. Giuliano had that happily
+constructed mind which, with an ineffable content in its own works,
+will pass through life perfectly happy in the feeling that in reaching
+mediocrity it has achieved success. Not only wanting talent to produce
+better works, he lacked also the faculty of perceiving where his own
+were faulty, and having a great aptitude for copying the works of
+others, he felt himself as great as the original artists. Michelangelo
+was always amused with his naïve self-conceit, and kept up a friendship
+with him for many years. He even went so far as to sit to Bugiardini for
+his likeness, at the request of Ottaviano de' Medici. Giuliano, having
+painted and talked nonsense for two hours, at last exclaimed, to his
+sitter's great relief, "Now, Michelangelo, come and look at yourself; I
+have caught your very expression." But what was Michelangelo's horror to
+see himself depicted with eyes which were neither straight nor a pair!
+The worthy artist looked from his work to the original, and declared he
+could see no difference between them, on which Michelangelo, shrugging
+his shoulders, said, "It must be a defect of nature," and bade his
+friend go on with it. This charming portrait was presented to Ottaviano
+de' Medici, with that of _Pope Clement VII._, copied from Sebastian del
+Piombo, and is now in the Louvre. Bugiardini's works always take the
+style of other masters. There is a _Madonna_ in the Uffizi, and one
+in the Leipsic Museum, both in Leonardo's style, with his defects
+exaggerated. The former is a sickly woman in a sentimental attitude,
+the child rather heavy, the colouring is bright and well fused; he has
+evidently adopted the method which he had seen Albertinelli use in his
+studio.
+
+During a stay in Bologna he painted a _Madonna and Saints_ as an
+altar-piece for the church of S. Francesco, besides a _Marriage of S.
+Catherine_, now in the Bologna Pinacoteca. The composition of this is
+not without merit; the child Jesus seated on his mother's knees, gives
+the ring to S. Catherine, little S. John stands at the Virgin's feet, S.
+Anthony on her left. The colouring is less pleasing, the flesh tints too
+red and raw.
+
+A round picture in the Zambeccari Gallery, Bologna, shows him in
+Michelangelo's style. The Virgin is reading on a wooded bank, but looks
+up to see the infant Christ greet the approaching S. John Baptist; this
+is carefully, if rather hardly, painted. The lights in the Saviour's
+hair have been touched in with gold. The time of his stay in Bologna is
+uncertain, but in 1525 he was in Florence, and drawing designs for the
+Ringhiera with Andrea del Sarto. There is a document in the archives,
+proving that on October 5th, 1526 Bugiardini was paid twenty florins
+in gold for his share of the work. He obtained some rank as a portrait
+painter, in spite of his failure in that of Michelangelo; and had
+commissions from many of the celebrities of Florence. It was in original
+composition that his powers failed him. Messer Palla Rucellai ordered a
+picture from him of the _Martyrdom of S. Catherine_, which he began with
+the intention of making it a very fine work indeed. He spent several
+years in representing the wheels, the lightnings and fires in a
+sufficiently terrible aspect, but had to beg Michelangelo's assistance
+in drawing the men who were to be killed by those heavenly flames; his
+design was to have a row of soldiers in the foreground, all knocked down
+in different attitudes. His friend took up the charcoal and sketched
+in a splendid group of agonised nude figures; but these were beyond his
+power to shade and colour, and Tribolo made him a set of models in clay,
+in the attitudes given by Michelangelo, and from these he finished the
+work; but the great master's hand was never apparent in it. Bugiardini
+died at the age of seventy-five.
+
+Of Francesco Bigi, commonly called Francia Bigio or Franciabigio, so
+much is said in the following life of Andrea del Sarto, that a slight
+sketch will suffice here. He was the son of Cristofano, and was born in
+1482. His early studies were made in the Brancacci Chapel, and the
+Papal Hall--where he drew from the cartoons in 1505-6, and the studio
+of Mariotto Albertinelli, from which he passed to his partnership with
+Andrea del Sarto in 1509. Thus it is that his first style was marked by
+the influence of Mariotto and Fra Bartolommeo, while in his later works
+he approximated more to Andrea del Sarto.
+
+Two of his early paintings were placed in the church of S. Piero
+Maggiore, one a _Virgin and Child_ of great beauty. The infant clasps
+its arms round its mother's neck--a charming attitude--which suggests
+a playful effort to hide from the young S. John, who is running towards
+him, by nestling closer to the dearer resting place. The picture is now
+in the Uffizi and has been long known as _Raphael's Madonna del Pozzo_.
+[Footnote: Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _History of Painting_, vol. iii.
+chap. xv. p. 501.] No greater testimony to Francia Bigio's excellence
+can be given than the frequency of his works being mistaken for those of
+Raphael, but the influence of his contemporaries was always strong upon
+him. The _Annunciation_, painted for the same church, is also described
+by Vasari as a carefully designed work, though somewhat feeble in
+manner. The angel is lightly poised in air, the Virgin kneeling before a
+foreshortened building. The picture was lost sight of in the demolition
+of the church, but Crowe and Cavalcaselle [Footnote: Crowe and
+Cavalcaselle, _History of Painting_, Vol. iii. p. 500.] believe they
+have discovered it in a picture at Turin, the authorship of which is
+avowedly doubtful. They mention, however, a celestial group of the
+Eternal Father in a cherub-peopled cloud, sending his blessing in the
+form of a dove, with a ray of glory. Surely if this be the one described
+by Vasari [Footnote: Vasari, vol. iii. p. 336] so minutely, he would not
+have omitted a part of the subject so important to the picture.
+
+In 1509 we may presumably date the partnership with Andrea del Sarto,
+that being about the time when they began to work together in the
+Scalzo. Francia Bigio painted some frescoes in the church of S. Giobbe,
+behind the Servite Monastery. A _Visitation_ was in a tabernacle at the
+corner of the church, and subjects from Job's life on a pilaster within
+it: these have long ago disappeared. The altar-piece of the _Madonna
+and Job_, which he painted in oil for the same church, has been more
+fortunate, as it still exists in the Tuscan School in the Uffizi. Though
+much injured, it shows his earlier style. The _Calumny of Apelles_ in
+the same gallery is a curious picture. It is hard and dull in colouring,
+the prevailing tone being a heavy drab; there are several nude figures,
+of doubtful forms as to beauty of drawing, the flesh is painted in a
+smooth glazed style, without relief or tenderness.
+
+Francia Bigio shines more in fresco than in oil; his hardness is less
+apparent, and he gains in freedom and brilliance of colouring in the
+more congenial medium. The finest of his frescoes is, unfortunately,
+spoiled by his own hand, and remains as a memorial of his genius and
+hasty temper. I allude to the _Sposalizio_ (A.D. 1513) in the courtyard
+of the Servite church, where Andrea did his series of frescoes from the
+life of Filippo Benizzi. The composition is grand and carefully thought
+out, the colouring bright and pleasing; perhaps in emulating Andrea's
+luxurious style of drapery he has gone a little too far, and crowded
+the folds. The bridegroom is a noble figure, and shows in his face his
+gladness in the blossoming rod. A man in the foreground breaks a
+stick across his knees. The commentators of Vasari have taken this to
+emblematize the Roman Catholic legend of the Virgin having given rods to
+each of her suitors, and chosen him whose rod blossomed. Graceful women
+surround the Virgin, but there is perhaps a too marked sentimentality
+about these which suggests a striving after Raphael's style. There is,
+however, a great touch of nature in a mother with a naughty child, who
+sits crying on the ground, much to the mother's distress. Francia Bigio
+commenced this in Andrea's absence in France, which so excited his
+former comrade's emulation that he did his _Visitation_ in great haste,
+to get it uncovered as soon as Francia Bigio's. In fact, Andrea's works
+were ready by the date of the annual festa of the Servites, and the
+monks, being anxious to uncover all the new frescoes for that day, took
+upon them to remove the mattings from that of Francia Bigio as well,
+without his permission, for he wished to give a few more finishing
+touches. So angry was he, on arriving in the cloister, to see a crowd of
+people admiring his work in what he felt to be an imperfect condition,
+that in an excess of rage he mounted on the scaffolding which still
+remained, and, seizing a hammer, beat the head of the Madonna to pieces,
+and ruined the nude figure breaking the rod. The monks hastened to the
+scene in an uproar of remonstrance, the frantic artist's destructive
+hand was stayed by the bystanders, but so deep was his displeasure that
+he refused to restore the picture, and no other hand having touched
+it, the fresco remains to this day a fine work mutilated. It shows him
+artistically in his very best, and morally, at his worst, phase. In
+1518, while Andrea was in France, the monks of the Scalzo employed
+Francia Bigio to fill two compartments in their pretty little cloister,
+where Andrea had commenced his _Life of S. John Baptist_. These are
+spoken of more at length in the life of that master, who on his return
+took the work again in his own hands. In 1521 Bigio competed with Andrea
+and Pontormo, in the Medici Villa at Poggio a Cajano; Andrea's _Cæsar
+receiving Tribute_ occupies one wall of the hall, and Francia Bigio's
+_Triumph of Cicero_ another. The subjects were selected by the
+historian, Messer Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera; it only remained for
+the artists to make the most of the chosen themes. Francia Bigio filled
+his background with a careful architectural perspective, and a crowd of
+muscular Romans are grouped before it. This also was left unfinished
+at the Pope's death, and Allori completed it in 1582. Francia Bigio,
+however, did many of the gilded decorations of the hall.
+
+In the Dresden Gallery is a work, Scenes from the Life of David, signed
+A. S., MDXXIII., and his monogram, a painting very much in the style of
+Andrea del Sarto's _Life of Joseph_. Reumont [Footnote: Life of Andrea
+del Sarto, p. 138 et seq.] claims it as the joint work of Andrea and
+Francia Bigio, founding his opinion on the letters A. S. before the
+date; but the letters mean only _Anno salutis_, and are used in very
+many of Francia Bigio's signed paintings. He had the commission from Gio
+Maria Benintendi in 1523. It is one of those curious pictures which have
+many scenes in one--a style which militates greatly against artistic
+unity. On the right is David's palace, on the left Uriah's; David is at
+his door watching Bathsheba and her maidens bathing. In the centre
+is the siege of Rabbah; another well-draped group represents David
+receiving Uriah's homage. In the foreground David gives wine to Uriah
+at a banquet. There is careful painting and ingenious composition, but
+a less finished manner of colouring than in Andrea's Joseph, which was
+painted about the same time for Pier Borgherini.
+
+Like Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, Francia Bigio fell off in his later style,
+partly because his ambition failed him, and also because he began to
+look on art as a means of livelihood--a motive which is certain death to
+high art.
+
+He was especially celebrated as a portrait painter, several of his works
+having been attributed to Raphael. Among these are one at the Louvre and
+one at the Pitti Palace, both portraits of a youth in tunic and black
+cap, with long hair flowing over his shoulders; one in the National
+Gallery, formerly in Mr. Fuller Maitland's collection; the portrait of a
+jeweller, dated A. S., MDXVI. in Lord Yarborough's gallery; that in the
+Berlin Museum, of a man sitting at a desk, dated 1522; and the likeness
+of Pier Francesco de Medici at Windsor--all of which bear Francia
+Bigio's monogram, often with the letters A. S. (_Anno salutis_) before
+the date. He died on January 14th, 1525.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+RIDOLFO GHIRLANDAJO. A.D. 1483--1560.
+
+
+RIDOLFO (DI DOMENICO) BIGORDI, called GHIRLANDAJO, &c., was born on the
+4th of January, 1483. Although not strictly a scholar, he is one of
+Fra Bartolommeo's principal followers. When quite a child he lost his
+father, the famous Domenico, who died of fever, on January 11th,
+1494; his mother and uncle Benedetto only lived a few years after;
+and Ridolfo, with his three sisters and two brothers, was left to the
+guardianship of his uncle Davide.
+
+Ridolfo was the only one who chose the family profession, and he became
+the fourth painter of the name of Ghirlandajo.
+
+Davide was not a perfect artist, although a good mosaicist, as his works
+in the cathedrals of Orvieto, Siena, and Florence show, but he was
+for many years Ridolfo's only instructor. As the boy grew up Ridolfo
+frequented those public schools of art before spoken of, the Brancacci
+Chapel, and the study of the cartoons in the Papal Hall. Here he secured
+the friendship not only of Granacci and Pier di Cosimo, but of Raphael
+himself, with whom he visited Fra Bartolommeo in his convent.
+
+Raphael permitted Ridolfo to assist him in a Madonna for Siena, and
+tried to persuade him to accompany him to Rome; but Ridolfo, like a true
+Florentine, declined to go "beyond sight of the Duomo."
+
+His first great picture was done in 1504 for the church of San Gallo.
+The subject was _Christ Searing His Cross_. His uncle Benedetto had
+laboured on a similar picture, now in the Louvre, but Ridolfo's is a
+great improvement on this; the composition is well balanced, full
+of force and animation, the weeping figures of the Maries and the
+solicitude of S. Veronica are very lifelike, although he has not
+entirely abolished his uncle's coarseness in the scowling, low-typed
+men. The Christ and the Virgin are, on the contrary, so refined as to
+induce the supposition that this force of contrast was intentional; the
+landscape is rather hard and crude in tone, the flesh tints smooth, and
+the handling similar to that of Credi.
+
+The original is now in Palazzo Antinori, Florence, but a replica, in
+which he was assisted by Michele, his favourite pupil and adopted son,
+is in Santo Spirito.
+
+Vasari speaks of a _Nativity_, painted for the Cistercian monks of
+Cestello; a beautiful composition, in which the Madonna adores the holy
+child, S. Joseph standing near her; S. Francis and S. Jerome kneel in
+adoration; the landscape was sketched from the hills near "La Vernia,"
+where S. Francis received the stigmata.
+
+Maselli says the picture was lost when the monastery changed hands, but
+Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle [Footnote: History of fainting, vol. in.
+chap. xvi. pp. 523, 524.] believe they have found it in the Hermitage at
+S. Petersburg, under Granacci's name. It is possible that the favourite
+pupil of his father and Ridolfo's own friend may have assisted him. The
+landscape is Raphaelesque, and might mark the time when that master
+and Fra Bartolommeo influenced his style. His best manner approached so
+nearly to that of the Frate, that had he continued he would have very
+nearly rivalled his excellence.
+
+His two masterpieces are now in the Uffizi; they were painted for
+the Brotherhood of S. Zenobio, 1510, to stand one on each side of
+Albertinelli's _Annunciation_. One is _S. Zenobio_ (the first bishop and
+patron saint of Florence) _restoring a dead child to life_; the other
+the _Funeral Procession of the Saint passing the Baptistery_, where an
+elm tree, which had been withered, put forth fresh leaves as the coffin
+of the bishop touched it. A marble column, with a bronze tree in relief
+on it, stands on the spot as a memorial of this miracle. In these two
+works Ridolfo Ghirlandajo proved the power which was in him, but they
+are the culmination of his art; he never surpassed, or indeed equalled
+them again. His richness of colouring and deep relief equalled that of
+the Frate, the animation and expression rivalled Andrea del Sarto. In
+the first picture, the eagerness of the crowd, the intense feeling of
+the mother, in whom grief for the dead child seems almost greater
+than the hope of his resuscitation, the sturdy, solid character of the
+Florentines of the Republic, are all given with a masterly hand, while a
+rich blending of colour fuses the animated crowd in a harmonious unison.
+In the latter, grandeur and dignity mark the group of ecclesiastics
+which surrounds the archbishop's bier, the full solid falls of their
+drapery show that he had well studied his father's works.
+
+Ridolfo's brothers became monks, Don Bartolommeo lived in the
+Camaldoline Monastery of the Angeli, which Ridolfo beautified with many
+works. Paolo Uccelli had adorned the Loggia with frescoed stories from
+the life of S. Benedict. Ridolfo added two to the series. In one the
+Saint is at table with two angels, waiting for S. Romano to send his
+bread from the grotto, but the devil has cut the cord and taken it.
+
+Another is _S, Benedict investing a youth with the habit of the order_.
+In the church of the same monastery he painted a beautiful _Madonna and
+Child, with Angels_, above the holy water vase, and _S. Romualdo with
+the Camaldolese Hermitage in his Hand_, in a lunette in the cloister.
+All these were done as a brotherly gift, and after they were finished,
+the abbot, Don Andrea Dossi, gave him a commission to paint a _Last
+Supper_ in the refectory, which he did, placing the portrait of the
+abbot in the corner.
+
+Ridolfo, like his father, regarded art rather as a means of livelihood
+than with any aesthetic feelings, and this is probably the reason of his
+never attaining true excellence. His "bottega" was really a shop where
+any one might order a work of art, or of artisanship, and he gave as
+much attention to painting a banner for a procession as to composing an
+altar-piece. He had a great many assistants, whom he called on for help
+in various undertakings. They assisted him to prepare the Medici
+Halls for the reception of Pope Leo X., and later for the marriages
+of Giuliano and Lorenzo, not disdaining to paint scenes for the dramas
+which were then given. He painted banners, and designed costumes for the
+processions of the "potenze," a festive company, the origin of which is
+uncertain, but dating certainly from the Middle Ages. Each quarter of
+the city had an emperor, lords, and dignitaries, each of whom carried
+his banner or emblazonment. Grand processions, tournaments, and feasts
+were held once a year, on S. John's Day, by the potenze.
+
+Having assisted at the triumphs and marriages of the Medici princes, he
+also furnished the funeral pomp and magnificence on the deaths of the
+brothers, that of Giuliano occurring in 1516, of Lorenzo 1519.
+
+Lucratively it answered his purpose; the Medici gave him great honour;
+he was well paid by them, and got the commission to decorate the Chapel
+of the Palazzo Vecchio--a very good specimen of his fresco painting, in
+which he never reached his father's excellence, although in oil he far
+surpassed him. The chapel is small; the groined roof is covered with
+emblematical designs on a blue ground, a Trinity in the midst with
+angels bearing symbols of the passions around. The apostles and
+evangelists surround this, and the principal wall has a larger fresco of
+the _Annunciation_--a rather conventional rendering.
+
+Commissions flowed in on him to such a degree, that although he
+had fifteen children, he lived to amass money and lands, to see his
+daughters well married, and his sons prosperous merchants trading to
+distant lands. He died on the 6th of June, 1561, and lies with his
+forefathers in the church of S. Maria Novella.
+
+
+
+
+ANDREA D'AGNOLO,
+
+CALLED ANDREA DEL SARTO.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+YOUTH AND EARLY WORKS. A.D. 1487-1511.
+
+
+Andrea Del Sarto is a curious instance of the vital power of art, which,
+like a flower forcing its way to the light through walls or rocks, will
+find expression in spite of obstacles.
+
+Andrea the painter, "senza errori," was an artist in spite of lowering
+home influences, of want of encouragement in his patrons--for his
+greatest works only brought the smallest remuneration--and even in
+spite of his own nature, which was material, wanting in high aims, and
+deficient in ideality; yet his name lives for ever as a great master,
+and his works rank close to those of the leaders of the Renaissance.
+
+In looking at them one sighs even in the midst of admiration, thinking
+that if the hand which produced them had been guided by a spark of
+divine genius instead of the finest talent, what glorious works they
+would have been! The truth is that Andrea's was a receptive, rather
+than an original and productive mind. His art was more imitative than
+spontaneous, and this forms perhaps the difference between talent and
+genius. The art of his time sunk into his mind, and was reproduced.
+He lived precisely at the time of the culmination of art, when all the
+highest masters were bringing forth their grandest works; therefore he
+could not do otherwise than to follow the best examples.
+
+He gathered the experience of all--the force of Michelangelo, the
+handling of Leonardo, the sentiment of Raphael, so blending them as to
+form a style seemingly his own, and in execution following closely on
+their excellence.
+
+In Giotto's or Masaccio's case the master created the art; in Andrea's
+it was the art of the age which made the artist.
+
+The question of Andrea del Sarto's birth is a mooted one. Biadi dates
+it 1478, but the register he quotes is both vague and doubtful. He
+also tells a curious story of his Flemish origin. Signor Milanesi has
+deduced, from the archives of Florence, an authentic pedigree from which
+we learn that his remote ancestors were peasants, first at Buiano,
+near Fiesole, and later at S. Ilario, near Montereggi. His grandfather,
+Francesco, being a linen weaver, came to live nearer Florence; his
+father, Agnolo, son of Francesco, followed the trade of a tailor--hence
+Andrea's sobriquet, "del Sarto"--he took a house in Via Gualfonda, in
+Florence, about 1487, with his wife Constanza, and here Andrea was born,
+he being the eldest of a family of five--three girls and two boys. From
+the tax papers of a few years later it is proved that Andrea was born
+in 1487. His full name is Andrea d'Agnolo di Francesco. It is by mistake
+that he has been called Vannucchi.
+
+His parents were young, his father being only twenty-seven years of
+age at Andrea's birth. They lived at that time in Val Fonda, where
+Albertinelli had his shop, but in 1504 they removed to the popolo, or
+parish, of S. Paolo. Boys were not allowed to be idle in those days, but
+were apprenticed at an early age; thus Andrea, like most artists of his
+time, was bound to a goldsmith. It would be interesting to investigate
+the great influence of the guild of goldsmiths on the art of the
+Renaissance. The reason why youths who showed a talent for design were
+entered in that guild is easy to assign--it was one of the "greater"
+guilds, that of the painters being a lesser one, and merged in the "Arte
+degli Speziali." At seven years old he left the school where he had
+learned to read and write, and entered his very youthful apprenticeship;
+but he showed so much more aptitude for the designing than for the
+executive part of his profession that _Giovanni Barile_, who frequented
+the bottega, was induced to counsel his being trained especially as
+a painter, offering himself as instructor. If Andrea, a contadino by
+birth, an artisan by education, was not originally of the most refined
+nature, his artistic training did not go far towards refining him.
+Giovanni Barile was a coarse painter and a rough man; he had, however,
+generosity enough to see that the boy was worthy of better teaching, and
+got him entered in the bottega of Piero di Cosimo, who had attained
+a good rank as a colourist, his eccentricities possibly adding to his
+reputation.
+
+Accordingly in 1498, Andrea being then eleven years of age, a life of
+earnest study began. Piero di Cosimo, odd and misanthropic as he was,
+had yet a true appreciation of talent, and showed an earnest interest
+in his pupil, giving him--with plenty of queer treatment--a thorough
+training. "He was not allowed to make a line which was not perfect"
+[Footnote: Rosini, _Storia della Pittura_, chap. xvii. p. 40.] while
+in Piero's school. But excellent as his art teaching may have been, the
+boy's morale could not have been raised more here than under the rough
+but good-natured Barile. We have seen Piero di Cosimo in his youth, the
+serious, absent young man, who never joked with his juniors in Cosimo
+Roselli's shop; we see him now, with his youthful oddities hardened into
+eccentricities, and his reserve deepened to misanthropy. No woman's hand
+softened and refined his house, no cleansing broom was allowed within
+his door, and no gardener's hand cleared the weeds or pruned the vines
+in his garden. He so believed in nature unassisted that he took his
+meals without the intervention of a cook. When the fire was lighted to
+boil his size or glue he would cook fifty or sixty eggs and set them
+apart in a basket, to which he had recourse when the pangs of hunger
+compelled him. All this was morally very bad for a boy so young. And
+then woe betide the poor little fellow if he whistled, sneezed, or made
+any other noise! his nervous master would be out of temper for a day
+afterwards. On wet days Piero was merrier, for he would watch the drops
+splashing into the pools, and laugh as if they were fairies. Sometimes
+he would take Andrea for a walk, and all at once stop and gaze at a heap
+of rubbish, or mark of damp on a lichened wall, picturing all kinds of
+monsters and weird scenes in its discolourations.
+
+No doubt he was literally carrying out Leonardo da Vinci's advice,
+headed, in his treatise, "A new Art of Invention." "Look at some old
+wall covered with dirt, or the odd appearance of some old streaked
+stones; you may discover several things like landscapes, battles,
+clouds, humorous faces, &c., to furnish the mind with new designs."
+[Footnote: Leonardo da Vinci, _Treatise on Painting_.] Cosimo's mind
+being fantastic, the pictures he saw were incomparably grotesque. He
+delighted in drawing sea monsters, dragons, wonderful adventures, and
+heathen scenes; in fact the boy could have learned neither Christian
+art nor manners from him. He learned how to use his brush, however, and,
+leaving Piero to his minotaurs and dragons, went off at every spare hour
+to study at more congenial shrines. He copied Masaccio at the Brancacci
+Chapel, and drew so earnestly from the cartoons in the Hall of the Pope
+that his achievements reached the ears of Piero himself, who was not
+sorry that his pupil surpassed the rest, and gave him more time for
+study away from the bottega. Rosini tells us that "Fra Bartolommeo
+taught him the first steps." [Footnote: _Storia della Pittura_, chap,
+xxvii. p. 2.] The influence of the Frate may have reached him in two
+ways. It is not unlikely that Piero di Cosimo kept up an interest in his
+old fellow-pupil; and then again, as Andrea lived in Val Fonda, it is
+probable he often visited Albertinelli's studio in that street, and the
+friendship with Francia Bigio began before the cartoons of Michelangelo
+ripened there.
+
+The evidence of style goes to show that the works of Albertinelli and
+Fra Bartolommeo influenced him more than those of Piero. Yet though
+his sphere was devotional, it was "impelled more by a material sense of
+beauty than by the deep religious feeling which inspired the Frate."
+
+As time went on the youth in strange old Piero's studio became more
+famous than his master, and felt that he could do greater things away
+from the stiff method which cramped him, and the whimsicalities which
+annoyed him. His friend, Francia Bigio, Mariotto's pupil, having
+just then lost his master, who was giving more attention to his
+father-in-law's business of innkeeper than his own, was willing to enter
+into partnership, and the two youths began life together in 1509 or
+1510, in a room near the Piazza del Grano, in the first house in Via del
+Moro, which still remains in its old state.
+
+The first bit of patronage recorded is the commission for the frescoes
+in the Scalzo; that they had work before is proved by the words in
+the contract of the Barefoot Friars, "dettero ad Andrea pittore
+_celeberrimo_ il dipingere nel Chiosto." The "celebrated" presupposes
+works already done.
+
+The Scalzo was a name given to the "Compagnia dei Disciplinati di S.
+Giovanni Battista," because they went barefoot when they carried the
+cross in their processions. They lived in a convent in Via Larga (now
+Cavour), opposite San Marco. A new cloister had been erected there--an
+elegant little cortile, thirty-eight feet by thirty-two, adorned with
+lovely Corinthian pillars--and the Brethren were anxious to fill the
+lunettes of the arches with frescoes at the least possible expense,
+wisely judging that a young artist on his way to fame would be the best
+to employ.
+
+The frescoes, of which there would be twelve large, and four small ones
+in the upright spaces by the doors, were to be done in "terretta," or
+brown earth, and to be paid fifty-six lire (eight scudi) for the large,
+and twenty-one lire (three scudi) each for the lesser frescoes. The
+small ones were four figures of the Virtues, _Faith_, _Hope_, _Justice_,
+and _Charity_. _Hope_ is exquisitely expressed, and _Charity_ a charming
+group, the children most tenderly drawn. The subjects, though not all
+finished till many years later, stand now in the following order; the
+second row of figures, with the dates, show the order in which they were
+painted:--
+
+ 1. Gabriel appearing to Zacharias          Andrea del Sarto   9  1523.
+ 2. Visitation                              Andrea del Sarto  10  1523.
+ 3. Birth of S. John                        Andrea del Sarto   4  1514.
+ 4. Zacharias blessing John before going    Francia Bigio.
+      to the desert
+ 5. S. John meets the Virgin and Infant     Francia Bigio.
+      Christ
+ 6. Baptism of Christ                       Andrea del Sarto   1  1509.
+ 7. Preaching of S. John                    Andrea del Sarto   2  1514.
+ 8. Baptism of the Gentiles                 Andrea del Sarto   3  1514.
+ 9. S. John bound in the presence of Herod  Andrea del Sarto   5  1522.
+10. Dance of Herodias Andrea del Sarto 6 1522. 11. Beheading of S.
+ John Andrea del Sarto 7 1522. 12. Herodias receives the head of S. John
+ Andrea del Sarto 8 1522.
+
+Of these, No. 6 was the first executed, and it is probable that Francia
+Bigio assisted him, for it has not the finished drawing nor careful
+handling of any of Andrea's other frescoes. Possibly this is the cause
+of the partners never working together afterwards, each taking his own
+subjects and signing his own name. The composition, in the _Baptism of
+Christ_, is not original, being very similar to that of Verocchio's,
+especially in the two angels kneeling on the left bank; the landscape
+and figures, however, are far in advance of that master.
+
+It will be well to speak of the whole set of frescoes in this place, for
+although they belong to different times and styles, they are a complete
+work, and might be taken almost as an epitome of Andrea's career;
+from the one above mentioned in which Piero de Cosimo's influence is
+apparent, to the Nos. 7 and 8, which very nearly approach Michelangelo's
+power and freedom.
+
+In No. 1 the expression of muteness about the mouth of Zacharias, as he
+stands by the altar, is wonderfully given; you feel sure he could not
+speak if he would. The other figures are superfluous to the motive,
+though adding grandeur to the work as a whole.
+
+In composition Andrea differs widely from Fra Bartolommeo. The latter
+delighted in building up a single form, every figure in the whole
+picture adding its hue and weight to perfect this pyramid or circle.
+Andrea spreads his figures more widely; he likes a double composition,
+dividing his pictures into two separate groups, connected by one central
+figure, or divided entirely. This is seen in Nos. 3, 10 and 12, which
+are all double groupings, the last completely divided in the centre by a
+table and an archway behind it. Nos. 7 and 9 are pyramidal compositions.
+The _Preaching of S. John_ is one of the best works, and shows his most
+forcible style. S. John on a rock stands like a pillar in the centre,
+the hearers are dressed in the "lucco" (a Florentine cloak of the 15th
+century), the grouping following the lines of the landscape. At the
+back Jesus kneels on a rising ground. Vasari says the figures are from
+Albrecht Dürer, whose works had made a great impression on the southern
+world of art; but it is more probable that they only show his influence,
+for the dress and style are Florentine.
+
+No. 8, the _Baptism of the Gentiles_, is another of his best style,
+and is, in the drawing of the nude figures, almost Michelangelesque
+in power. This is one of his favourite "echo" subjects, a group in the
+background of _John answering the Pharisees _forming an echo to the
+principal subject. The muscular life of the spirited crowd of nude
+figures is beautifully contrasted by the graceful draped forms in the
+background. One of the baptized is the same child whom he had modelled
+in the _Madonna_ of S. Francisco.
+
+Nos. 4 and 5 are by Francia Bigio, and were done during Andrea's absence
+in France, showing that he had so far learned from his friend as almost
+to rival him in power. The subjects, although not scriptural, are
+conjecturally true.
+
+In the _Zacharias blessing John before he goes to the Desert_, the
+sitting figure of S. Elizabeth and the kneeling one of the child are
+very lovely; the action of Zacharias is not so well defined, the
+great force in the uplifted arm betokens anger more than blessing. The
+grouping follows the lines of a flight of steps in the background, and
+is triangular.
+
+The same form of composition is apparent in the next group (No. 5), only
+the lines form an angle receding from the one just mentioned. The Virgin
+is charmingly posed and draped, the children less pleasing.
+
+This elegant little cloister is a true shrine of art, although the
+frescoes are all in monochrome. So much were they admired at the time,
+that an order was issued prohibiting artists to copy them without the
+permission of Duke Cosimo. Cardinal Carlo de' Medici had them covered
+with curtains, [Footnote: Richa, _Delle Chiese_] but, in spite of care,
+they are very much injured, the under parts almost lost. The precaution
+of covering the cloister with a glass roof has only been taken in modern
+times, and too late.
+
+Andrea's next patrons were the Eremite monks of S. Agostino, at San
+Gallo, who ordered of him two pictures for their church. In 1511 he
+painted _Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen_, and an _Annunciation_ in
+1512. The former is said to have had much softness and delicacy, the
+latter is to be seen in the Hall of Mars at the Pitti, and is a very
+pleasing picture. The Virgin kneels at her prayer desk, S. Joseph behind
+her--a rather unusual rendering of the subject--her attitude is graceful
+and decorous, the angel calm and gentle, floats in mid air, two other
+angels stand on the left. The colouring is varied in the extreme, and
+the lights well defined.
+
+These two pictures, and the _Disputa_, painted later, were removed to
+the church of S. Jacopo tra Fossi, when the convent was demolished in
+1529. They were still there in 1677, when Bocchi wrote his _Bellezze di
+Firenze_, but the _Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen_ is said to be now
+in the church of the Covoni in the Casentino.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE SERVITE CLOISTER. A.D. 1511-1512.
+
+
+The next great works were the frescoes in the Court of S. Annunziata, if
+indeed they were not carried on simultaneously with those in the Scalzo.
+This famous series of Andrea's works was obtained by cunning, and
+painted in emulation. While the two partners, who had differed from the
+beginning, and had since become rivals, were engaged in the Scalzo, a
+certain astute Fra Mariano, the keeper of the wax candle stores at the
+Servite Convent--to which the church of the S. Annunziata belonged--had
+watched well those two young painters. Fra Mariano understood human
+nature, as priests often do; he had seen the envious rivalship growing
+between them, as the friends, who should have worked together, took
+separate compartments, and cast jealous criticising glances on each
+other's designs and method of work. Having ambition of his own, he knew
+how to work on that of others to further his own aspirations, which
+were, to be considered a patron of art and a benefactor to his convent.
+
+Reading Andrea's heart, he played on all his strongest feelings, placed
+before him the glory he would win by covering the lunettes of the arches
+in the court of the fine church with frescoes which would carry his
+name down to posterity; he said that any other artist would pay much
+to obtain leave to paint upon historical walls like those, and how they
+would all envy the man who should obtain the coveted honour! Then, with
+a half-whispered hint that for one, Francia Bigio was dying to get the
+commission for nothing, the wily Frate went his way victorious. Andrea,
+scorning to make any pecuniary bargain, only stipulated that no one else
+should paint in that courtyard, and forthwith began the _Stories from
+the Life of S. Filippo Benizzi_, having only old Alesso Baldovinetti's
+_Nativity_, and Cosimo Roselli's _Miracle of S. Filippo_, as foils to
+his own. These two works were on the walls on each side of the church
+door; there were therefore three entire sides of the cloister to cover,
+excepting only the entrance into the courtyard from the Piazza, and
+no doubt he felt like Ghirlandajo, when "he wished he had the entire
+circuit of the city walls to paint."
+
+On the 16th of June, 1511, he began to paint with such vigour that in a
+few months the first three were uncovered.
+
+1. _S. Philip at Viterbo with the Court, dressing a naked leper in his
+own cloak_.
+
+2. _S. Philip going from Bologna to Modena_. He rebukes some gamblers,
+telling them the vengeance of God is near. A sudden thunderstorm and
+lightning destroy them, thus fulfilling the prediction. There is a
+great deal of fine action in this composition; the horror and disbelief
+struggling in the faces of the men, and the stormy landscape are all
+well rendered. A horse leaps away with strong, terrified action, there
+is a masterly grasp of his vivid subject, and a rugged strength in the
+execution which gives great life to it.
+
+3. _S. Philip exorcises a Girl possessed of a Demon_. Here the
+composition is very tender, the mother and father support the sick girl,
+and form a very pleasing group; the figures of the spectators are full
+of life without exaggeration.
+
+These works have suffered much from exposure, but the colouring is still
+good. The praise that Andrea obtained for them was so great that he
+followed them up by the two in the next series.
+
+4. _A Child brought to life by touching the bier of S. Philip_. This is
+a kind of double composition, the child being represented in a twofold
+condition in the foreground, first as dead, and then revived at the
+touch of the bier. The grouping around the dead saint is very suggestive
+of Ghirlandajo, and shews a deep study of his frescoes in the Sassetti
+Chapel. The colouring is peculiarly his own; there is the mingling of
+a great variety of bright tints of equal intensity, which by some
+necromancy are made to relieve each other, instead of being relieved by
+the art of chiaroscuro as in the handling of other masters.
+
+5. _Children healed by the garments of S. Philip_, which are held by a
+priest, standing before an altar, the women and their children kneeling
+in front of him. The grouping is symmetrical, the figures lifelike, but
+not refined, round-cheeked buxom women, and rough, human men's faces,
+bespeak Andrea as the painter of reality rather than ideality; there is
+vivid life in every attitude, but the life is not high caste. A fine old
+man, leaning on his staff, is a portrait of Andrea della Robbia, whose
+son Luca stands near.
+
+For all these Fra Mariano paid only ten scudi each, and Andrea, feeling
+the remuneration not equal to the merit of the work, would have left off
+here, but the Frate held him to his bond. Two more lunettes yet remained
+to finish, but as these were of a later date, we will reserve them for
+a future chapter. He also painted in the _orto_, or garden, of the
+convent, the now perished fresco of the _Parable of the Vineyard_.
+
+Meanwhile, the rival friends had changed lodgings; they left the Piazza
+del Grano, and took rooms in the Sapienza, a street between the Piazza
+San Marco and the S. Annunziata. Andrea chose this because it was near
+his work, and also because his great friends, Sansovino and Rustici,
+already lived there. Commissions began to pour in on him, which he
+fulfilled, while still at work at the Servi. Judging from the style of
+his early manner, we may date at this time a _Virgin and Child, with
+S. John and S. Joseph_, now in the Pitti. It is painted "alla prima,"
+_i.e._ a quick method of giving the effect in the first painting,--and
+is probably the one spoken of by Vasari as painted for Andrea Santini;
+it formerly belonged to Francesco Troschi. [Footnote: _Life of Andrea
+del Sarto_, vol iii, p. 193.]
+
+A _S. Agnes_, in the palace of the Prince Palatine, at Düsseldorf, is
+in this early style. He also painted some frescoes at San Salvi, _SS.
+Giovanni Gualberto and Benedict resting on clouds_; they ornamented the
+recess where the _Last Supper_ was placed at a later period.
+
+In a narrow alley, behind the church of Or San Michele, is a tabernacle
+on the wall beneath an ancient balcony. Here the architect, Baccio
+d'Agnolo, commissioned Andrea del Sarto to paint an _Annunciation_. It
+is so much injured as to be almost indistinguishable now, but was much
+admired at the time, though some say it was too laboured, and so wanting
+in ease and grace. [Footnote: Biadi, 26; Vasari, vol. iii, p 189.] It
+is more likely that it was one of his early works, and should be classed
+before the frescoes of the Scalzo, for it is said that he was living at
+the time with his father, whose shop was over the archway, and that
+he had adorned the inner walls of the house with two frescoed angels.
+[Footnote: _Firenze antica e moderna_ Ed. Flor. 1794, vol. vi, p. 216.]
+These have perished completely.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+SOCIAL LIFE AND MARRIAGE. A.D. 1511-1516.
+
+
+This chapter will speak of the _man_, and not of the _artist_. As it is
+now understood that history is not a dry record of battles and laws, but
+the story of the inner life of a people, so the biography of a painter
+ought not to consist wholly in a list and description of his works, but
+a picture of his life and inner mind, that we may know the character
+which prompted the works.
+
+First, as to personal appearance. There are two portraits of Andrea
+del Sarto in his youth; one in the Duke of Northumberland's collection
+represents him as a young man with long hair, and a black cap, writing
+at a table. It is painted in a soft, harmonious style, but not masterly
+as regards chiaroscuro. It might be by Francia Bigio, as it has
+something of the manner of his master, Albertinelli.
+
+Another now in the Uffizi is a most life-like portrait of sombre
+colouring, but not highly finished. Here we have the same black cap and
+long hair; the dress is a painter's blouse of a blue-grey, which well
+brings out the flesh tints. The face is intelligent, but not refined;
+the clear dark eyes bespeak the artist spirit, but the full mobile mouth
+tells the material nature of the man. In looking at this one can solve
+the riddle of the dissonance between his art and his life. As a young
+man Andrea was full of spirit; he loved lively society, and knew almost
+all the young artists who lived very much as students now. They met each
+other in the art schools, and dined and feasted together in the wine
+shops. Sometimes they formed private clubs, meeting in certain rooms for
+purposes of youthful merriment.
+
+Of this kind was the "Society of the Cauldron" ("Società del Paiuolo"),
+held at the apartment of the eccentric sculptor, Rustici, which was in
+the same street as that of Andrea himself.
+
+Sansovino, who also lived near, was not a member of this rollicking
+club; he was one of Andrea's more serious friends, and served as
+companion when his most exalted moods were upon him. Perhaps Rustici's
+rooms did not please Sansovino, for strange inmates were there--a
+hedgehog, an eagle, a talking raven, snakes and reptiles, in a kind
+of aquarium; besides all these gruesome familiar spirits, Rustici was
+addicted to necromancy. The Society of the Cauldron seems only a natural
+outgrowth from such a character. It consisted of twelve members, all
+artists, goldsmiths, or musicians, each of whom was allowed to bring
+four friends to the supper, and bound to provide a dish. Any two members
+bringing similar dishes were fined, but the droll part of it was that
+the suppers were eaten in a huge cauldron large enough to put table and
+chairs into; the handle served as an arched chandelier, the table was
+on a lift, and when one course was finished it disappeared from their
+midst, and descended to be replenished. As for the viands, the sculptors
+displayed their talents in moulding classical subjects in pastry, and
+turning boiled fowls into figures of Ulysses and Laertes. The architects
+built up temples and palaces of jellies, cakes, and sausages; the
+goldsmith, Robetta, produced an anvil and accoutrements made of a
+calf's head, the painters treated roast pig to represent a scullery-maid
+spinning.
+
+Andrea del Sarto built up the model of the Baptistery with all kinds of
+eatables, with a reading desk of veal, and book with letters inlaid with
+truffles, at which the choristers were roast thrushes with open beaks,
+while the canons were pigeons in red mantles of beetroot--an idea more
+droll than reverential.
+
+After this, in 1512, another club, called that of the "Trowel," was
+instituted, of which Andrea was not a member, but was chosen as an
+associate. The first supper was arranged by Giuliano Bugiardini, and was
+held on the _aja_ or threshing floor of S. Maria Nuova, where the bronze
+gates of the Baptistery had been cast.
+
+In this no two members were allowed to wear the same style of dress
+under penalty of a fine. The members were in two ranks, the "lesser" and
+the "greater," a parody on the guilds of the city. They were shown the
+plan of a building, and the "greater" members, furnished with trowels,
+were obliged to build it in edibles, the "lesser" acting as hodmen, and
+bringing materials. Pails of ricotta or goat's milk cheese served for
+mortar, grated cheese for sand, sugar plums for gravel, cakes and pastry
+for bricks, the basement was of meats, the pillars fowls or sausages.
+
+Some suppers were classical scenes, others allegorical representations,
+always in the same edible form. We can imagine the wit which sparkled
+round these strange tables, the jokes of the artists, the songs of the
+musicians. Andrea del Sarto is said to have recited an heroi-comic poem
+in six cantos called the "Battle of the frogs and mice." Biadi gives it
+entire; it seems a kind of satire on Rustici's tastes, with perhaps
+a hit at the government, and shows no lack of wit of rather unrefined
+style; but the authorship is not proved. Some say Ottaviano de Medici
+assisted Andrea in it.
+
+It would have been well for Andrea if this innocent jollity had sufficed
+for him, but unfortunately he admired a woman whose beauty was greater
+than her merits. Probably he began by mere artistic appreciation of her
+personal charms, for she sat to him for the _Madonna of the Visitation_,
+which was painted in 1514, two years before their marriage. This
+Lucrezia della Fede was the wife of a hatter who lived in Via San Gallo.
+Her husband dying after a short illness, Andrea del Sarto married her,
+and whatever were her faults, she retained his life-long love. Biadi and
+Reumont give the date 26th of December, 1512, as that of the death of
+her husband, but Signor Milanesi, from more authentic sources, proves it
+to have been in 1516.
+
+A great deal has been said and written of the evil influence this woman
+had on him, and his very house bears an inscription recording his fame
+together with "affanni domestici," but it would seem that posterity
+has taken for truth more than the facts of the time imply. That she was
+proud, haughty, exacting, and not of a high moral nature, that she was
+selfish, and begrudged his helping his own family, her every action
+proves. That her manners were not conciliating to the pupils is
+possible, perhaps their manners savoured too much of familiarity for a
+woman who believed in her own charms; but that she was faithless, which
+her biographers assert on the strength of Vasari's phrase, "that Andrea
+was tormented by jealousy," there is literally nothing to show.
+
+In the first place Vasari--who was one of the scholars she offended and
+put down--gives vent to his private pique in his first edition, and in
+the second, which only contains a slight mention of her, omits almost
+all he had previously said. Now, if the first assertions were true why
+should he retract them? Secondly, the sixteenth century was an age of
+license in writing and speaking, and had any immoralities been laid to
+her charge, not a biographer would have scrupled to particularize them;
+but no! her name is never mentioned, except with her husband's, even by
+her greatest enemies, who say she was as haughty as she was beautiful.
+Thirdly, a faithless woman could never have kept her husband's devoted
+love, and had she been so, would that affectionate though exaggerated
+letter of hers, recalling him from France, have been written? That a
+man who thinks his wife the most lovely creature living may be tormented
+with jealousy without wrong doing on her part is more than possible.
+
+Let us then place Lucrezia's character where it ought to stand in Andrea
+del Sarto's life--as a powerful influence, lowering his moral nature,
+weaning him from his duties as a son and brother, by fixing all his care
+and affection on herself; she, however, not allowing her own family to
+be losers by her marriage, although causing him to slight his own. Even
+this much-spoken-of neglect of his own family seems disproved by his
+will, which, after a very little more than her own dot left to his wife,
+makes his brother and niece heirs of all his estate.
+
+Except that she cared more for her own pleasure than his true
+advancement, she was not any great hindrance to his artistic career; he
+painted an incredible number of pictures, and she was willing to sit
+for him over and over again. Indeed if she were his model for all the
+Madonnas in which her features are recognisable, she must have had
+either inexhaustible patience or great love for the artist.
+
+In fact she was thoroughly selfish; as long as she reaped the benefit
+of his work she furthered his art; where she was left out of his
+consideration he must be brought back to her side at any sacrifice to
+him. This is not the stuff of which an artist's wife ought to be made;
+the influence of a strong-willed selfish nature on his weak and material
+one was not good, and his _morale_ became lowered.
+
+He felt this deterioration less than his friends felt it for him; even
+Vasari says that "though he lived in torment, he yet accounted it a high
+pleasure." It was one of those unions in which the man gives everything,
+and the woman receives and allows every sacrifice. Her family were kept
+at his expense, her daughter loved as his own, and if she were haughty
+or exacting, he suffered with a Socratic patience, thinking life with
+her a privilege.
+
+It is to be supposed that a member of the societies of the Cauldron
+and the Trowel would appreciate good living. He was so devoted to
+the pleasures of the table that he went to market himself early every
+morning and came home laden with delicacies. [Footnote: Biadi, _Notixie
+inedite_, &c., chap. xix. p. 62.] A curious confirmation of this is to
+be found in his house, the dining-room of which is beautifully frescoed,
+the arched roof in Raphaelesque scrolls and grotesques; while the
+lunettes of one wall have two large pictures, one of a woman roasting
+birds over a fire, the other of a servant preparing the table for
+dinner. This love of good living, however, in the end shortened his
+life, according to Biadi.
+
+After his marketing was over he turned his attention to art, going to
+his fresco painting followed by his scholars, or superintending their
+work in the "bottega." He was always a kind and thorough master, his
+manner just and fatherly.
+
+Sometimes he and Sansovino or other friends lounged away an hour in the
+neighbouring shop of Nanni Unghero, where their mutual friend, Niccolò
+Tribolo, did all the hard work, fetching and carrying blocks and saws
+grumblingly. Tribolo often begged Sansovino to take him as his pupil,
+which he did afterwards, and he became a famous sculptor. One of
+Andrea's acquaintances was Baccio Bandinelli, who, as he thought he
+could equal Michelangelo in sculpture, imagined that only a knowledge
+of Andrea del Sarto's method of colouring was necessary to enable him
+to surpass him in painting. To gain this knowledge he proposed to sit to
+Andrea for his portrait. His friend, discovering his motive, succeeded
+in frustrating it by mixing a quantity of colours in seeming confusion
+on his palette, and yet getting from this chaos exactly the tints he
+required. So Baccio never rivalled his friend in colouring after all,
+not being able to understand his method.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+WORKS IN FLORENCE. A.D. 1511-1515.
+
+
+From 1511 to 1514 Andrea was employed on the two last frescoes in the
+courtyard of the SS. Annunziata the _Epiphany_ and the _Nativity of the
+Virgin_. The sum fixed for these was ninety-eight lire, but the Servite
+brothers augmented it by forty-two lire more, seeing the work was
+"veramente maravigliosa"; thus these two were paid at the same rate as
+the other five of S. Filippo--seventy lire or ten scudi each.
+
+In the _Nativity_, one of the finest of his frescoes, we see his
+favourite double grouping, the interest in the mother being kept to one
+side, that of the child and its attendants to the other-a balance of
+form united by Joachim, a stern, finely moulded figure in the centre.
+The attitudes are natural, the draperies free and graceful. Old Vasari
+justly remarks "pajono di carne le figure." The woman standing in the
+centre of the room is Lucrezia della Fede; this is the first known
+likeness of her. There is a richness of colour without impasto, a
+modulation of shade giving full relief without startling contrast, a
+clear air below and celestial haze in the angel-peopled clouds above.
+
+This might well be classed as on the highest level ever reached in
+fresco. Nearly fifty years after it was painted, while Jacopo d'Empoli
+was copying this fresco, an old woman came through the courtyard to
+mass, and, stopping to watch the young artist at his work, began to talk
+of the days of her youth and beauty when she sat for the likeness of
+that natural figure in the midst, no doubt sighing as she looked at
+the freshness of the fresco, and thought of her many wrinkles and aged
+limbs, she being nearly fourscore at the time.
+
+The _Epiphany_ is also a remarkable work, more lively than the last;
+it is also less carefully painted, the graceful feminine element
+is wanting; there is plenty of activity, a crowded composition,
+and richness of colour. Three figures are especially interesting as
+likenesses; that of the musician Francesco Ajolle--a great composer of
+madrigals, who went to France in 1530, and spent the remainder of his
+life there; Sansovino, on the right of Ajolle; and near him Andrea
+himself--the same face as the portrait in the Uffizi already spoken of.
+
+The _Madonna del Sacco_, over the door of the entrance to the church
+from the cloister, would seem to have been painted in the same year,
+1514, judging from Biadi's extract from the MS. account books of the
+Servite Fathers existing in the archives, where is an entry "Giugno,
+1514, ad Andrea del Sarto, per resto della Madonna del Sacco, lire 56."
+This term _resto_ (remainder) would imply a previous payment. The money
+was a thank-offering from a woman for having been absolved from a vow by
+one of the Servite priests. Like all his other frescoes of this church,
+Andrea only gained ten scudi for this masterpiece. The date of MDXXV.
+and the words "Quem genuit adoravit" on the pilasters of this work have
+led most writers to suppose it painted in that year; but it is probable
+they were added by a later hand. Biadi [Footnote: Biadi, _Notizie_, &c.,
+p. 42 note.] says the letters are of the style of nearly two centuries
+later, that Andrea would have signed it, like all his other and works,
+with his monogram of the crossed A's (i.e. Andrea d' Agnolo). For
+charming soft harmonies of colour, simplicity, and grace of design, this
+surpasses all his other frescoes. The Madonna has an imposing grandeur
+of form, there is a boyish strength and moulding in the limbs of the
+child which is very expressive, the dignity of Joseph and majesty of the
+Virgin are not to be surpassed; and yet the whole is given in a space so
+cramped that all the figures have to be reclining or sitting.
+
+[Illustration of Monogram]
+
+After this Andrea returned to the Scalzo, the Barefoot Brothers offering
+better pay than the Servites. Here he did the allegory of _Justice_
+and the _Sermon of S. John_ in monochrome. In these he took a fancy to
+retrograde his style, for they have the rugged force and angular form
+that recalls the more stern old Italian masters, or that Titan of
+northern art, Albrecht Dürer.
+
+Of his works in oil at this era we may class--
+
+1. The _Story of Joseph_, painted for Zanobi Girolami Bracci, which
+Borghini judges a beautiful picture. The figures were small, but the
+painting highly finished. It came afterwards into the possession of the
+Medici family.
+
+2. A _Madonna_, with decorations and models surrounding it like a frame,
+was painted for Sansovino's patron, Giovanni Gaddi, afterwards clerk
+of the chamber to Ferdinand I. It was existing in the collection of the
+Gaddi Pozzi family in Borghini's time.
+
+3. _Annunciation_, for Giovanni di Paolo Merciajo, now in the Hall
+of Saturn in the Pitti Palace. It is a pretty composition, the Virgin
+sitting, yet half kneeling, the angel on his knees before her. There is
+a yellowish light in the sky between two looped dark green curtains; the
+angel's yellow robe takes the light beautifully.
+
+4. _Madonna and Child_, in the "Hall of the Education of Jupiter" in the
+Pitti Palace, one of his most pleasing groups. This is supposed by the
+commentators of Vasari to be the altarpiece painted for Giovanni di
+Paolo Merciajo, but Biadi traces it through the possession of Antonio,
+son of Zanobi Bracci, to its present possessors. The mistake arises
+from Vasari often confusing the names Annunciations and Assumptions with
+Madonnas.
+
+5. A _Holy Family_, for Andrea Santini, which awakened great admiration
+in Florence. It was in the possession of Signer Alessandro Curti Lepri,
+by whose permission Morghen's print was taken.
+
+6. The _Head of our Saviour_, over the altar of the SS. Annunziata,
+ordered by the sacristan of the order. A magnificent head, full of
+grandeur and expression, and very clear in the flesh tints. Empoli made
+several copies of it.
+
+7. The _Madonna di San Francesco_, Andrea's masterpiece among easel
+pictures. It was a commission from a monk of the order of "Minorites of
+Santa Croce," who was intendant of the nuns of S. Francesco, and
+advised them to employ Andrea. In grandiose simplicity this surpasses
+Albertinelli's _Visitation_, in soft gradations and rich mellowness
+of colour it equals Fra Bartolommeo at his best, for tenderness in the
+attitude of the child it is quite Raphaelesque. The Madonna is standing
+on a pedestal adorned with sculptured harpies. She holds the Divine
+Child in one arm; its little hands are twined tenderly round her neck,
+and it seems to be climbing closer to her. The two children at her feet
+give a suggestive triangular grouping, while the dignified figures of S.
+Francis and S. John the Evangelist form supports on each side, and
+rear up a pyramid of beauty. Rosini's term "soave" just expresses this
+picture, so fused and soft, rich yet transparent in the colouring. The
+olive-brown robe of one saint is balanced by the rich red of the other.
+In the Virgin, a deep blue and mellow orange are combined by a crimson
+bodice. The price paid to the painter for this was low because he asked
+little; but a century or two later, Ferdinando de' Medici, son of Cosmo
+III., spent 20,000 scudi to restore the church, and had a copy of the
+picture made in return for a gift of the original, which is now the gem
+of the Tribune in the Uffizi.
+
+8. The _Disputa, di S. Agostino_ is another masterpiece, showing as much
+power as the last-named work displays of softness. It was painted at the
+order of the Eremite monks of San Gallo for their church of San Jacopo
+tra Fossi, where it was injured by a flood in 1557, and removed later
+to the Hall of Saturn in the Pitti Palace. The composition is level, the
+four disputing saints standing in a row, the two listeners, S. Sebastian
+and Mary Magdalen, kneeling in front. S Agostino, with fierce vehemence,
+expounds the mystery of the Trinity; S. Stephen turns to S. Francesco
+interrogatively, S. Domenico (whom Vasari, by the way, calls S. Peter
+Martyr) has a face full of silent eloquence--he seems only waiting his
+turn to speak. In S. Sebastian we have a good study from the nude, and
+in Mary Magdalen's kneeling figure--a charming portrait of Lucrezia--is
+concentrated the principal focus of colour.
+
+9. _Four Saints_, SS. Gio. Battista, Gio. Gualberto, S. Michele, and
+Bernardo Cardinale, a beautifully-painted picture, once in the Hermitage
+of Vallombrosa. There were originally two little angels in the midst
+dividing the saints, as in our illustration. When the picture was
+transferred to the Gallery of the Belle Arti, where it now is, the
+angels were taken out and the divided saints brought into a more compact
+group. The angels are in a frame between two frescoed Madonnas of Fra
+Bartolommeo.
+
+By this time the fame of Andrea del Sarto, both as a fresco and oil
+painter, had risen to the highest point. Michelangelo only echoed the
+opinion of others when he said to Raphael, "There is a little fellow in
+Florence who will bring the sweat to your brow if ever he is engaged in
+great works." His style of composition was important, his figures varied
+and life-like, his draperies dignified. "The main excellence, however,
+in which Andrea stands unique among his contemporaries rests in the
+incomparable blending of colour, in the soft flesh tints, in the
+exquisite chiaroscuro, in the transparent clearness even of his
+deepest shadows, and in his entirely new manner of perfect modelling."
+[Footnote: _Lübke History of Art_, vol. ii. p. 241.] His method, as
+shown in an unfinished picture of the _Adoration of the Magi_ in the
+Guadagni Palace, was to paint on a light ground; the sketch was a
+black outline, the features and details not defined, but often roughly
+indicated. He finished first the sky and background. The flesh tints,
+draperies, &c., were all true in tone from the first laying in.
+[Footnote: Eastlake's _Materials for History of Oil Fainting_.] He did
+not place shades one over the other, and fuse them together glaze by
+glaze as Leonardo did, but used an opaque dead colouring which allowed
+of correction; the system was rapid, but deficient in depth and
+mellowness; "the lights are fused and bright," but "the shadows, owing
+to their viscous consistency, imperfectly fill the outlines." [Footnote:
+Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. in. chap. xvii. p. 670.] In a _Holy Family_
+in the Louvre, S. Elizabeth's hand is painted across S. John, and shows
+the shadow underneath it, being grey at that part. Though more solid,
+he could not paint light over dark without injuring his brilliance of
+colour.
+
+Albertinelli, on the contrary, when he painted and repainted his
+_Annunciation_, washed out the under layer with essential oil before
+making his "pentimenti" or corrections, and in this way the thinness was
+kept.
+
+In Andrea's early style this thinness is apparent, especially in the
+Joseph series, painted for Pier Francesco Borgherini.
+
+Biadi classes Andrea's works in three styles. The first showing the
+influence of Piero di Cosimo, the second--to which the best works in the
+Servi cloisters belong--is a larger and more natural style, after the
+study of Michelangelo and Leonardo.
+
+The third is the natural development in his own practice of a perfect
+knowledge of art, and a just appreciation of nature. The _Birth of
+the Baptist_ and the _Cenacolo_, of San Salvi, belong to his last and
+greatest manner. In 1515 the Florentine artists were employed on more
+perishable works than frescoes. Leo X., the Medici Pope who had been
+elected in 1513, made his triumphal entry into Florence on the 3rd of
+September, 1515, on his way to meet Francis I. of France at Bologna.
+All the guilds and ranks of Florence vied with each other to make his
+reception as artistic as possible. He and his suite were obliged to stay
+three days in the Villa Gianfigliazzi at Marignolle while the triumphal
+preparations were being completed. The churches had temporary _façades_
+of splendid architecture in fresco; arches were erected at the Porta
+Romana and Piazza San Felice, covered with historical paintings;
+Giuliano del Tasso adorned the Ponte Santa Trinità with statues;
+Antonio San Gallo made a temple on the Piazza della Signoria, and
+Baccio Bandinelli prepared a colossus in the Loggia dei Lanzi. Various
+decorations adorned other streets, and Andrea del Sarto surpassed them
+all with a _façade_ to the Duomo, painted in monochrome on wood. His
+friend Sansovino designed the architecture, and he painted the sculpture
+and adornments with such effect that the Pope declared no work in marble
+could have been finer.
+
+Andrea lent his talent to another kind of decorative art. The guild
+of merchants were desirous of inaugurating a festa for the day of S.
+Giovanni, and had ten chariots made from the model of the ancient Roman
+ones, to institute chariot races in the piazza. Andrea painted several
+of these with historical subjects, but they have long been lost. The
+chariot races were revived under the Grand Dukes, but not with any
+success.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+GOING TO FRANCE. A.D. 1518-1519.
+
+
+Meanwhile fate was working Andrea del Sarto on to what might have been
+the culminating point of his fame, had not his weakness rendered it
+a blot on his honour; i.e. his journey to France. His fame was rising
+high; a picture of the _Dead Christ surrounded by Angels_, weeping over
+the body they support, having been sent to France, [Footnote: It was
+engraved by the Venetian, Agostino, before it went to France; the
+engraving is signed 1516. It did not please Andrea, who never allowed
+any others to be engraved.] the king was so pleased with it that he
+wished another work by the same artist. Andrea painted a very beautiful
+_Madonna_, for which, however, he only obtained a quarter of the price
+which the king paid to the merchants. The king was so delighted with it
+that he sent the artist an invitation to come to Paris in his employ,
+promising to pay all his expenses. In the Pitti Palace there is a
+portrait of Andrea and his wife, in which he has commemorated the
+reception of this letter. He is looking very interested over it, while
+his wife has the blankest expression possible.
+
+In the summer of 1518 he started with his pupil, Andrea Sguazzella,
+called Nanoccio. Such a journey was in those days considered as little
+less than a parting for life. It is plain that Lucrezia's family
+looked on her as almost a widow, for they made him sign a deed of
+acknowledgement for the 150 florins of her _dote_. Some authors have
+taken this document as a proof of their marriage in that year, but it
+was merely a precaution against loss by her family; the Italian law
+being that the husband is obliged to render the portion obtained with
+his wife to her family if she dies without issue, and in case of his own
+death, the widow is entitled to it.
+
+He was well received in Paris, and employed immediately on a likeness
+of the infant Dauphin Henri II., then only a few months old. For this he
+obtained 300 scudi: and a monthly salary was allowed him. What a mine of
+gold the French court must have seemed to him after working for years at
+large frescoes for ten scudi each!
+
+He did no less than fifty works of art while there, most of which have
+been engraved by the best French artists.[Footnote: See _Catalogue of
+Royal Pictures in France_, by M. Lepiscié.] The _Carità_ is signed
+1518, and is in Andrea's best style--perhaps with a leaning towards
+Michelangelo. The _S. Jerome in Penitence_, which he painted for the
+king's mother, and obtained a large price for, cannot be traced. His
+life in Paris was a new revelation, and not without its effect on his
+character, always alive to substantial pleasure.
+
+The king and his courtiers frequented his atelier, and delighted to
+watch him paint, vieing with each other in the richness of their gifts,
+among which were splendid brocade dresses and beautiful ornaments and
+jewels, in which he longed to adorn his wife. While he was engaged in
+painting the _S. Jerome_ for the queen-mother, a letter from Lucrezia
+aroused his longings for home to the uttermost; she--the wife who has
+been branded by the name of faithless--wrote that she was disconsolate
+in his absence, and that if he did not soon return he would find her
+dead with grief.
+
+Vasari, quoting this exaggerated letter, says in his first edition that
+she only wanted money to give her friends, but this also he retracts in
+the second. Whether it expressed her feelings truly or not, the letter
+had such an effect on Andrea's mind that he decided to return home at
+any cost.
+
+During Andrea's absence the house in Via S. Sebastiano, behind the
+Annunziata, was being prepared under her superintendence and with
+his sanction. His scholars had decorated the walls and ceilings with
+frescoes, and no doubt Lucrezia was as anxious for him to see the new
+house as he was to adorn her with Parisian brocades and jewellery.
+
+Being able to satisfy her ambitious soul, Andrea too readily flung away
+all his brilliant prospects to return, and willingly take again the yoke
+of the burden of his wife and her family. He made promises that he would
+bring her back to Paris with him, and the king in all faith allowed
+him to depart, confiding to him large sums of money for the purchase of
+works of art to be sent to France.
+
+Sguazzella, wiser than his master, preferred to stay in Paris under the
+patronage of Cardinal de Tournon. He painted a great many works, much in
+the style of Andrea, but with less excellence. It is possible that some
+of M. Lepiscié's long list are, in fact, the work of the pupil rather
+than the master. When Benvenuto Cellini went to France in 1537 he lodged
+in Sguazzella's house, with his three servants and three horses, at a
+weekly rate of payment (_a tanto la settimana_).
+
+But to return to Andrea: this is an episode in his life which we would
+gladly pass over if it were possible, for it forms the moral blot on a
+great artistic career.
+
+Returning home he fell once more under the strong will of his wife, but
+with his principles weakened by the effect of a luxury and prosperity
+which has always a greater deteriorating effect on a nature such as
+his than on a finer mind. Bringing grand ideas from the palaces of the
+French nobles, he not only fell in with Lucrezia's plans for beautifying
+the new house, but even surpassed her wildest schemes. The staircase was
+embellished with rich oaken balustrades, the rooms were all frescoed.
+Cupids hide in the Raphaelesque scrolls on the arches, classic
+divinities rest on the ceilings, but in the dining room the homely
+nature of the man who did his own marketing, creeps out. It is a
+charming room, the windows opening on a garden courtyard, where a vine
+trellis leads round to what used to be the side door of his studio which
+has its entrance in another street.
+
+The roof is vaulted and covered with exquisite decorative frescoes, but
+in the lunettes of the two largest arches are the domestic scenes of
+cooking and laying the cloth, spoken of at page 90. Two or three of the
+up stairs rooms are very fine, especially the one in which Andrea is
+said to have died. [Footnote: This description is due to the kindness of
+the present resident in the house, who kindly showed it to the writer,
+pointing out all the unrestored portions.] It is probable the furniture
+matched the style of the rooms, and that much money was spent on
+carved chairs and _cassoni_. Certain it is that the King of France's
+commissions were unfulfilled, and his money misappropriated.
+
+Andrea would have returned to France, but his wife, who had an Italian
+woman's dread of leaving her own country, put every obstacle in his way,
+adding entreaties to tears which the uxorious Andrea could not resist.
+As usual he tried to please her, and she only cared to please herself.
+
+He fell greatly in the estimation of the King, who was justly angry;
+albeit the artist salved his own too easy conscience by sending a few
+of his own paintings to Francis I., one of which, the _Sacrifice of
+Abraham_, still remains in France, and another a half length figure of
+_S. John the Baptist_. The place of this picture is much disputed; it is
+said to be at present in the Pitti Palace. Argenville speaks of it among
+the French pictures as if it had returned subsequently to Florence,
+while Vasari asserts that it never went there, but was sold to Ottaviano
+de' Medici. [Footnote: _Life of Andrea, del Sarto_, vol. in. p. 212.]
+As Andrea painted no less than five pictures of this subject, of which
+Argenville mentions that there were two in France, one of which was sold
+to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, it is probable that the Pitti one is not
+that painted for Francis I.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+ANDREA AND OTTAVIANO DE' MEDICI. A.D. 1521-1523.
+
+
+The Medici, always patrons of art, did not neglect to enrich their
+palaces with the works of Andrea del Sarto. Ottaviano de' Medici, a
+cousin of the reigning branch, was an especial friend of his, from
+the time that Andrea began the fresco of _Caesar receiving tribute of
+animals_ in the Hall of Poggio a Cajano. The commission came really from
+Pope Leo X., who deputed Cardinal Giulio, his cousin, to have the hall
+of the favourite family villa adorned with frescoes. He in turn handed
+over the direction to Ottaviano, who was a great amateur of art. It was
+designed that Andrea del Sarto should cover a third of the Hall, the
+other two-thirds being given to Pontormo and Francia Bigio. The payment
+of thirty scudi a month was arranged. In this Andrea has shown his
+genius in a style entirely new, the composition being crowded, the
+perspective intricate, the background a building adorned with statues.
+The subject being allegorical, he has given the reins to his fancy and
+produced a wonderful assemblage of strange beasts and stranger human
+beings, Moors, Indians, and dwarfs. There are giraffes, lions, and
+all kinds of animals, which he had an opportunity of studying in the
+Serraglio of Florence. The drawing is true and free, the figures and
+animals full of life, the colouring as usual well harmonised and bright.
+The Pope died about this time in 1522, and the picture was left to be
+finished by Allori in 1580.
+
+Ottaviano de' Medici, being a great lover of art, was often a patron
+on his own account; for him Andrea painted the _Holy Family_ now in the
+Pitti Palace. It is a most charmingly natural group: the Virgin seated
+on the ground dances the divine child astride on her knee, he is turning
+his head to the infant S. John who struggles to escape from his mother's
+arms to get to him. The fresh youth of the Virgin and the saintly age of
+S. Elizabeth are well contrasted. By the time this picture was finished
+the siege of Florence had begun, and when the painter took it to
+Ottaviano, he, having other claims on his means, excused himself from
+buying it, and recommended Andrea to offer it elsewhere. But the artist
+replied, "I have laboured for you, and the work shall be always yours."
+"Sell it and get what you can for it," again replied Ottaviano. Andrea
+carried the painting home again and would never sell it to any one. A
+few years after, the siege being over, and the Medici re-instated, he
+again took the _Holy Family_ to Ottaviano, who was so delighted that he
+paid him double the price for it.
+
+Ottaviano also bought from Carlo Ginori a _Madonna_ and _S. Job_, a nude
+half figure, which were by Andrea's hand. He it was who commissioned him
+to paint the portrait of Cardinal Giulio, afterwards Pope Clement VII.,
+and it was also at his instance that the imitation Raphael was painted
+for the Duke of Mantua. The Duke had set his heart on obtaining the
+picture painted by Raphael representing _Leo X. between the Cardinals
+Giulio and Rossi_, and got a promise of it as a gift from Pope Clement.
+His Holiness wrote to Ottaviano desiring him to have it sent to Mantua.
+But Ottaviano, appreciating the treasure as much as the Duke of Mantua,
+determined to secure it to the house of Medici. Under the pretence of
+having a new frame made he gained time, and meanwhile employing Andrea
+del Sarto secretly to make an exact copy of it, he sent that to the Duke
+instead of the original. So well had Andrea imitated the great master's
+style that every one in Mantua, even Giulio Romano, Raphael's own
+scholar, was deceived, and it was only some years later that George
+Vasari divulged the secret and showed Andrea's monogram on the side of
+the panel beneath the frame. This copy is now at Naples.
+
+The fresco at Poggio a Cajano abandoned, Andrea returned to the Scalzo,
+where he painted the _Dance of Herodias, Martyrdom of S. John Baptist,
+Presentation of the Head, Allegory of Hope_, and the _Apparition of the
+Angel to Zacharias_. The last was paid for August 22nd, 1523.
+
+About this time there was a great wedding in Florence. Pier Francesco
+Borgherini espoused Margherita Accajuoli, and Salvi, the bridegroom's
+father, determined to prepare for his son's bride a wedding chamber
+which should be famous in all ages.
+
+Baccio d' Agnolo had carved wonderful coffers, chairs, and bedsteads
+in walnut wood. Pontormo painted beautiful cabinets and _cassoni_, and
+Granacci, Francesco d' Ubertini Verdi, called Bacchiacca, and Andrea
+were all employed on the walls. Andrea furnished two pictures; the one
+tells the story of Joseph in Canaan, the other gives his life in Egypt.
+The style is that of Piero di Cosimo, but with greater excellence and
+more dignified figures. The landscape is highly finished and minute, and
+has a part of the story in every nook of it.
+
+The centre group, where Joseph leaves his father and mother to go to his
+brethren, is very dignified, although fine enough to be a miniature. In
+the second Pharaoh's palace is [Footnote: Reumont (_Life of Andrea del
+Sarto_, p. 134) dates these works 1523; the style, which is very much
+that of Piero di Cosimo, would seem to place them earlier.] represented
+as a medieval Italian castle, the dresses are all Italian, and as an
+instance of Andrea's versatility of talent they are very interesting
+paintings.
+
+During the siege of Florence, Borgherini was absent, and the picture
+dealer, Giovanni Battista della Palla, who prowled like a harpy to carry
+off treasures for the King of France, made an effort to obtain these
+paintings by inducing the government to confiscate them and sell them to
+him. But Margherita was equal to the occasion, and meeting the despoiler
+at her door, she poured out such a torrent of indignation, exhortation,
+and defiance as drove the broker away crestfallen.
+
+On the Medici's return della Palla was imprisoned as a traitor, and
+beheaded at Pisa. The paintings passed into the possession of the
+Medici, by purchase, during Andrea's life. [Footnote: Biadi, _Notizie_,
+&c., p. 146, note 2.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE PLAGUE AND THE SIEGE. A.D. 1525-1531.
+
+
+From 1524 to 1528 the plague desolated Italy, never entirely leaving it.
+During this time Andrea obtained a commission through Antonio Brancacci,
+to paint some pictures in the convent of S. Piero at Luco in Mugello,
+where he retired with his wife and her relations, and his pupil
+Raffaelo. They spent a very pleasant summer: the nuns made much of his
+wife and her sisters, and he passed his time in earnest painting. The
+fruits of his labour are a _Pietà_, a _Visitation_, and a _Head of
+Christ_--almost a replica of the one in the SS. Annunziata.
+
+The _Pietà_ is full of expression and feeling, but more realistic and
+less dignified than that of Fra Bartolommeo, which now hangs on the same
+wall of the Hall of Apollo at the Pitti.
+
+In colouring also there is a great contrast between the two, that of
+Fra Bartolommeo being deep, rich, and mellow, while Andrea's is more
+profuse, diffused, and wanting in depth of shadow.
+
+S. John and the Virgin raise the dead Saviour, the Magdalen and S.
+Catherine weep at his feet; S. Peter and S. Paul at the back express
+their grief in the manner natural to their characters. S. Peter, in his
+vehemence, flings up his arms in a madness of sorrow. S. Paul, with more
+dignity, is half stupefied with the intensity of woe.
+
+If those saints had been left in Fra Bartolommeo's _Pietà_, the
+two pictures would have had the very same figures, in each: but how
+different the composition, feeling, and expression! The Frate's group is
+a compact triangle; that of Andrea a scattered arrangement. The Magdalen
+of the Frate is overwhelmed with the very excess of love and grief, all
+of which is expressed intensely, yet her face is hidden; that of Andrea
+is a mere woman dressed in flying scarf and flowing garments, but with
+very little soul in her face.
+
+The characteristics of the two painters can be well studied in these
+works, so near together, so similar, and yet so different.
+
+For the three works painted at Luco Andrea was paid ninety florins in
+gold. The _Pietà_, was bought in later years by the Grand Duke Leopold,
+and now adorns the Pitti Palace.
+
+The _Visitation_ was placed in the church of the convent over a
+presepio. [Footnote: In 1818 it was restored by Luigi Scotti and sold.]
+Biadi gives the following document:--"Io Andrea d'Angiolo del Sarto, à
+di 11 Ottobre 1528 ho ricevuto fiorini 80 d' oro di quei larghi [_i.e._
+of two scudi each] della Tavola dell' Altar grande e di una mezza tavola
+della Visitazione, da Donna Caterina della Casa Fiorentina, Badessa di
+Luco." [Footnote: 2 Vol. in. p, 571, note.]
+
+Andrea was paid ten florins for the _Head of the Saviour_, through his
+assistant, Raffaello. This receipt would prove either that he went to
+Luco later than 1524, or that he returned there to finish the works in
+the year 1528.
+
+On their return to Florence in the autumn Andrea painted a fine work for
+his friend, Beccuccio da Gambassi, a glass-worker. It is an apotheosis
+of the _Madonna_, with four figures beneath--S. John Baptist, Mary
+Magdalen, S. Sebastian, and S. Rocco; not S. _Onofrio_, as Bottari has
+named it. The predella, now lost, had portraits of the patron and his
+wife. Crowe and Cavalcaselle speak of six saints in this picture, four
+standing and two kneeling.
+
+This description seems to point more certainly to the Sarzana _Madonna_,
+which is now in the Hall of Apollo, in the Pitti Palace. That for
+Beccuccio is described, with the four above-mentioned saints only, by
+all the Italian authors.
+
+The tabernacle, at the corner of the convent, outside the Porta Pinti,
+Florence, was painted about this time. It is now quite destroyed by
+age and weather; a good copy by Empoli, exists, however, in the western
+corridor of the Uffizi. It is a charming _Holy Family, with the infant
+S. John_,--a sweet laughing face. The Madonna is a portrait of Lucrezia.
+
+In the siege when the convent of the Ingesuate--at the corner of which
+it stood--was razed to the ground, this fresco, although loosened from
+the wall, was spared by the soldiers, who had not courage to injure it.
+The Grand Duke Cosimo was anxious to have it brought to Florence, and
+often came with engineers and architects, but they never hazarded its
+removal. [Footnote: Bocchi, _Bellezze di Firenze_, p. 482.]
+
+The Duomo of Pisa has five saints painted by Andrea; they originally
+formed one large picture in five compartments, and were painted for the
+church of the now suppressed convent of S. Agnes; but in 1618 they
+were divided into five pictures, and removed to the Duomo, where _S.
+Catherine Martyr_, _S. Margaret_, _S. Peter_, and _S. John the Baptist_
+hang on each side of the altar. _S. Agnes_, with her lamb by her
+side, is placed on a pilaster towards the southern door. This and _S.
+Margaret_ are especially graceful and expressive. There is much of
+the feeling of Correggio, but with more natural grace and less
+voluptuousness. The cutting and retouching had injured them greatly, but
+in 1835 Antonio Garazalli took off the repainting and restored them more
+delicately.
+
+In 1525 Andrea had a commission to draw cartoons for painting the
+balustrade of the Ringhiera--a kind of wide terrace in front of the
+Palazzo della Signoria, from which speeches were made to the populace.
+His designs were very beautiful and appropriate, the compartments being
+emblematical of the different quarters of the city; besides which were
+allegories of mountains, rivers, and virtues. The designs were left
+unfinished at his death, and the Ringhiera was never painted.
+
+In 1526-7 he worked at the fresco of the _Last Supper_, at S. Salvi,
+which was intended to have been done when he began the four saints
+there, in 1510, had not some misunderstanding between the rulers of the
+order prevented their continuation. [Footnote: Vasari's _Lives_, vol.
+iii. p. 224.] Even now he worked in a desultory manner, doing it bit by
+bit, but in the end producing a marvellous work.
+
+The refectory is a long vaulted hall, and the frescoed table, with its
+life-size figures, fills the whole arch of the wall opposite the door.
+One's natural impulse on entering it is to exclaim, "How life-like!"
+There is a great and living animation in the figures; the characters of
+the Apostles are written on their expressive faces. Judas is not placed
+away alone, as in many renderings of the subject, but is next to Christ,
+the contrast of the two faces being thus emphasized by proximity. S.
+Peter, though old, has all the vehemence and intensity of his character.
+Add to the feeling a brilliancy of colour of which Andrea alone had the
+secret, for without deep shadows, and keeping up the same intensity of
+tone throughout, he yet obtained great harmony and full relief where
+others would have produced a clash and flatness. Messrs. Crowe and
+Cavalcaselle say with justice, "From the contemplation of the _Cena_, at
+Milan, we should say that the painter is high bred; looking at that of
+S. Salvi, that he is accustomed to lowly company." [Footnote: _Hist. of
+Painting_, vol. iii. chap. xvii. p. 574.] But in some subjects a rugged
+strength is more important than a high refinement, and in the group of
+humble fishermen who formed the first church this is not out of place.
+If he could only have spiritualised Christ, nothing would be left to be
+desired.
+
+Andrea del Sarto was a member of a sacred company called the "Fraternità
+del Nicchio," for which he painted a standard to be carried in their
+processions. It is now in the Hall of the Old Masters in the Uffizi,
+and is a charming group of _S. James, with two children dressed in white
+surplices_--the habit of the company. The saint is caressing one,
+who kneels at his feet; the other has an open book in his hand.
+The draperies are especially graceful, and the expressions soft and
+pleasing.
+
+After finishing a portrait of the Intendant of the monks at Vallombrosa,
+which the said monk afterwards placed in an arbour covered with vines,
+regardless of the injuries of wind and rain--Andrea, having some colours
+still left on his palette, took up a tile and called his wife to sit for
+her portrait, that all might see how well she had kept her good looks
+from her youth; but Lucrezia not being inclined to sit, he got a mirror
+and painted _his own portrait_ on the tile instead. It was one of his
+later works, and Lucrezia kept it till her death. It is now in the room
+of portraits in the Uffizi, but much blackened by time; probably
+also from the tile not having been properly prepared. [Footnote: This
+portrait is given as a frontispiece.]
+
+The next year or two were taken up in producing a number of large
+altar-pieces, and in painting pictures for the dealer, Giovanni Battista
+della Palla, who was still intent on supplying the King of France with
+Italian works of art. For him he painted a _Sacrifice of Abraham_, which
+Vasari thinks one of his most excellent works. The face of the patriarch
+is full of faith, and yet self-sacrifice; the nude figure of Isaac,
+bronzed in the parts which have been exposed to the sun, most tenderly
+expresses a trembling dread, mingled with trust in his father; the
+landscape is also very airy and beautiful, and a characteristic group of
+a servant and the browsing ass is very effective in the background.
+
+He also painted a lovely picture of _Charity with three Children_ for
+Della Palla. Both these works were done with great care, for he hoped by
+their means to regain the lost favour of the King of France. It was
+too late for this, however; and, as it happened, neither of these works
+reached its destination. The siege of Florence took place about this
+time (1529); the dealer, Battista della Palla, had his head cut off in
+his dungeon at Pisa, and all hope of his mediation with Francis I. was
+at an end. The _Charity_ was sold to Domenico Conti, the painter, after
+Andrea's death, and thence passed into the hands of the Antinori family.
+The _Sacrifice of Abraham_ has had more vicissitudes. Filippo Strozzi
+purchased and gave it to the Marchese del Vasto, who had it in his
+castle at Ischia many years. Later it was sent from Florence to Modena
+in exchange for a Correggio, and Augustus II. of Saxony becoming its
+purchaser, placed it in the Dresden Gallery.
+
+This seems to have been a favourite subject with Andrea del Sarto, who
+repeated it five times.
+
+1. The one done by himself for the King of France.
+
+2. Also in France, having been purchased from the Grand Duke of Tuscany.
+(See Argenville.)
+
+3. The one mentioned above, done for G. B. della Palla.
+
+4. A smaller one, painted for Paolo da Terra Rossa; a fine painting, for
+which the artist asked so small a price that the purchaser was ashamed
+to pay it. Paolo sent it to Naples.
+
+5. An unfinished painting of _Abraham holding Isaac by the Hand_, now in
+the possession of the Zonadari family, who obtained it from the Peruzzi.
+
+During the siege, work was found for artists, but of an unpleasant
+nature. Andrea was commissioned, in 1530, to paint the effigies of
+some traitors on the palace of the Signoria. He dared not refuse,
+but remembering that his namesake, Andrea del Castagno, who had been
+similarly employed, gained the name of "Andrea degli Impiccati," he was
+anxious that the same name should not attach to himself. Accordingly he
+had an enclosed platform made, and giving out that his pupil, Bernardino
+del Buda, was going to paint the effigies, he worked at them himself
+secretly, till, on being uncovered, they seemed to be real persons
+writhing on the gibbet.
+
+No trace of them remains now, but the studies are in the collection of
+drawings in the Uffizi.
+
+A fine half-length figure of _S. Sebastian_, for the brotherhood of that
+name, which had its head-quarters in the street in which Andrea lived,
+was almost his last work in Florence.
+
+The siege was now over, but the influx of soldiers from the camp
+brought a return of the plague, which awakened great terror in the city.
+Andrea's mode of life and love of good living did not conduce to his
+safety; he was taken ill suddenly, and gave himself up for lost. Neither
+Vasari nor Biadi says he was entirely deserted by his wife; they only
+hint that she came to his room as little as she could, having a great
+fear of the plague.
+
+It is more than probable that Andrea himself kept her away from him, for
+his love was always unselfish, and he thought only of her good. However
+this be, he died, aged forty-two, on the 22nd of January, 1531, and was
+buried very quietly by the "Brethren of the Scalzo" in the church of the
+S. Annunziata. His tomb is beneath the pavement of the presbytery, on
+the left hand. His older biographers seem to think this unostentatious
+funeral a great slight to his merits, but if there were any doubts as
+to his illness being the plague, it would only have been a natural
+precaution to avoid spreading contagion by making his interment quite
+private.
+
+That Andrea had not wholly neglected his own family is proved by his
+will, which left his property (after paying back Lucrezia's _dot_ of
+100 scudi, and the money for the improvement of the new house in Via
+Crocetta for her and her daughter) to his brother Domenico, with
+the proviso that after his death half the bequest should be given to
+Domenico's daughter as _dot_, the rest to accrue to the hospital of
+the Innocenti (Foundlings). [Footnote: Ricordanze nel Archivio del E.
+Spedate degli Innocenti di Firenze. Biadi, _Notizie_, p. 127.]
+
+Lucrezia lived to a good old age, being nearly ninety when she died;
+she seems to have lived a very quiet life, and to have kept Andrea's
+paintings with great care, except a few only which she sold. The house
+in Via Crocetta passed many years afterwards into the possession of
+another painter, Zuccheri, who embellished the studio front with reliefs
+in stone, representing the paraphernalia of an atelier; but it is
+Andrea's name which lives in the house, as his memory does in the
+hearts of the Florentine people, and his works in the cloisters of the
+Florentine churches. The people of the city always seem to claim Del
+Sarto as especially their own. He is always _nostro pittore_, or _nostro
+maestro_-and indeed as a master of fresco he never was surpassed. In
+colouring he was in his way unique; in modelling, original and graceful;
+while the transparent clearness of his shadows and brilliant blending
+of tints in the lights render his handling incomparable. A little more
+refinement and aesthetic feeling would have placed him on a level with
+the great leaders of the Renaissance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+SCHOLARS OF ANDREA DEL SARTO.
+
+
+Andrea's scholars were numerous, though only a few rose to any great
+eminence. Of these, JACOPO CARRUCCI, "da Pontormo" (born 1494, died
+1557), was by far the most talented. Left an orphan at an early age, the
+charge of his sister devolved on him, and he placed her with a relation
+while he was pursuing his art training. He studied under a diversity of
+masters, including Leonardo da Vinci, Albertinelli, Piero di Cosimo; and
+finally, in 1512, he entered Andrea del Sarto's school, but did not
+stay long there either. Some say Andrea was jealous of his success; he,
+however, had generosity enough to praise and acknowledge his talent, and
+to show his appreciation by giving him important work to do in his own
+studio.
+
+Pontormo did the predella to Andrea's altar-piece of the _Annunciation_
+for the convent of S. Gallo. His hand is to be seen also in several
+of his master's works. He drew public attention first by painting two
+figures of _Faith_ and _Charity_ on the escutcheon of the Medici for
+Andrea di Cosimo, who had obtained the commission, but did not feel
+equal to executing it. Michelangelo, on seeing these figures, prophesied
+great things for the youth, who was at that time only nineteen years of
+age.
+
+The people of Pontormo, his native town, were so proud of him, that they
+sent for him to emblazon the arms of Pope Leo over the gate of their
+city.
+
+He was next employed by one of the festal companies of the age, called
+the Company of the Diamond, to design cars, banners, and costumes for a
+triumphal procession in honour of Leo X.'s elevation to the papal chair;
+and he organised a very suggestive array of the ages of man, illustrated
+historically. He decorated the Papal Hall for Leo X.'s entrance, and
+later began to be employed on more serious and lasting works.
+
+Some good frescoes of his existed in the convent of Santa Caterina, but
+were destroyed when the building was reconstructed in 1688.
+
+A very charming fresco of the _Visitation_ still exists in the court
+of the SS. Annunziata. It shows him as a good pure colourist, the flesh
+tints being especially tender; the composition is lively, full, and
+effective.
+
+In 1518 he painted a fine altar-piece for the church of S. Michele
+Visdomini, Florence, by commission of Francesco Pucci. The _Madonna_,
+seated, is showing the Child Jesus to S. Joseph, whose face is most
+expressive and full of smiling admiration. S. John Baptist stands near,
+at the sides are S. John Evangelist, S. James, and S. Francis, the
+latter kneeling in ecstatic admiration.
+
+In some cases he was placed in direct competition with his master,
+Andrea del Sarto, being employed by Borgherini to paint the coffers and
+cabinets in the same room for which Andrea did the _History of Joseph_;
+and again later at Poggio a Cajano, where the ends of the great hall
+were assigned to him to paint, Andrea and Francia Bigio taking the
+larger walls at the sides. On one end he designed an allegory of
+_Vertumnus_, with his husbandmen around him busy with their labours, and
+on the other _Pomona, Diana, &c_. Perhaps in these last he has carried
+his imitation of Andrea del Sarto rather too far in the matter of
+draperies, which are too profuse and studied. Indeed the whole works
+are overdone; he was so anxious to rival his master that he forced his
+invention, altering and labouring till all spontaneity was taken out of
+his work. Some of his frescoes were in the cloister of the Certosa, but
+they are not fair specimens of his best style, as they were done when
+the Florentine artists were smitten with the mania of imitating Albrecht
+Dürer, and in these he has entirely followed the harder manner of that
+artist without obtaining his strength. The frescoes are all scenes from
+the _Life of Christ_, and he spent several years over them; after which
+he painted an altar-piece.
+
+Giovanni Battista della Palla commissioned him to paint a picture to be
+sent to the King of France, and Pontormo returning wisely to his natural
+style, painted one of his masterpieces, the _Resurrection of Lazarus_.
+The Pitti Palace possesses a curious specimen of his work, the 11,000
+martyrs crucified in a wood in the persecution under the Emperor
+Diocletian.
+
+He rose to renown as a portrait painter, but lost patronage in later
+year by his capricious behaviour, refusing to work except for whom and
+when he pleased. In company with his favourite pupil, Bronzino, he did
+the frescoes in the Loggie of the Medici villa at Careggi; one Loggia
+was soon completed, to the great delight of the Duke, but Jacopo shut
+himself up in the second and allowed no one to see what he was doing
+for five years; when at length he uncovered the frescoes general
+disappointment was the result. He pursued much the same line of conduct
+in the frescoes of the roof of the Medici Chapel in San Lorenzo. He kept
+the chapel closed with walls and planks for eleven years, no one seeing
+his progress except some young men who removed one of the rosettes from
+the ceiling to peep in on him, but he discovered their plan, and closed
+the holes more assiduously than ever. The composition is as confused as
+it is diffusive; he tried to embody the whole teaching of the Bible, but
+becoming overwhelmed with the vastness of his subject, fell short even
+of the excellence of his own previous works. He died before this work
+was completed, of hydropsy, and was buried in the Servite Church.
+
+GIORGIO VASARI, better known as the chronicler of the works of other
+artists than for the excellence of his own, was born at Arezzo,
+1512--died at Florence, 1574. His father was a painter, and the family
+was connected by ties of relationship with Luca Signorelli of Cortona.
+Among the many masters under whom he studied was Andrea del Sarto.
+He did not remain long under his tuition, having contrived to offend
+Lucrezia in some way. He painted a great many frescoes at Arezzo, where
+he lived in his youth with his paternal uncle Don Antonio. Don Miniato
+Pitti, prior of the convent of Monte Oliveti, near Siena, next employed
+him to adorn the portico of his church. He had the good fortune to
+attract the notice of Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, who took him to Rome
+in his suite, where he gained much advantage by the study of the works
+of the great masters there. The Medici family, especially Andrea del
+Sarto's patron, Ottaviano, were his constant friends: and their palaces
+are profusely decorated by him. The Riccardi Palace has a room with
+fresco scenes from the life of Cæsar. While painting these Duke
+Alessandro gave him a salary of six crowns a month with a place at
+his table, and board for his servant, &c. The palace has several oil
+paintings by Vasari, amongst which are portraits of the Duke and his
+sister. After the death of Duke Alessandro and Ottaviano he wandered
+from city to city, painting so energetically that there are few of
+the principal towns which do not possess some of his works, especially
+Naples, Pisa, Bologna, and Arezzo. The Palazzo San Giorgio of the
+Farnese family, in Rome, has a large hall richly frescoed by Vasari, but
+the best of his works are to be seen on the walls of the great hall of
+the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, where he has illustrated the battles
+of the Florentines, and in several other rooms of the same palace; he
+having continued all the later years of his life in the service of Duke
+Cosimo, by whom the palace was restored and decorated. His works are too
+numerous and not sufficiently important to catalogue or describe,
+his composition is overcrowded and wanting in perspective. There is
+generally a superabundance of flesh; muscular limbs in all attitudes
+form a great part of his pictures, but as the flesh tints he used were
+wanting in mellowness and shadow, and have turned pink with age, they
+compare disadvantageously with those of the more solid masters who
+preceded him. After all, Vasari's name and fame rest principally on
+the labours of his pen, not those of his brush. His "_Lives of the
+Painters,_" although not a model of precision in facts or chronology, is
+nevertheless the mine from which all subsequent art historians quarry to
+obtain their information.
+
+One of the most valuable books of the day is probably the new edition
+of Vasari with corrections and notes taken from the archives by Signer
+Gaetano Milanesi.
+
+FRANCESCO ROSSI, DE' SALVIATI (born at Florence, 1510--died at Borne,
+1563) was a great friend of Vasari; his real name was Rossi, his father
+being a weaver of velvets, but he obtained the name of Salviati from
+being the protégé of the Cardinal of that name. His first master was
+Raffaello del Brescia, but in 1529 he, with his friend Nannoccio,
+entered the school of Andrea del Sarto, with whom they stayed during
+the siege. Becoming known by some paintings done for the friars of the
+Badia, Cardinal Salviati took him into his house, gave him a stipend of
+four crowns a month, and an apartment at the Borgo Vecchio, he painting
+any works the Cardinal wished. Francesco was not idle, a great number
+of frescoes, altar-pieces, and portraits, &c., &c., testifying to his
+industry. In his later years he was employed with his friend Vasari in
+the Palazzo Vecchio, where he painted the frescoes in the smaller Hall
+of Audience. These are principally scenes from the _Life of Camillus_.
+The story of the schoolmaster of Falerii is very spirited, and the
+_Triumph of Camillus_ varied and pleasing in colouring. Although
+melancholy and suspicious, often making enemies and losing patronage by
+misunderstandings, Rossi and Vasari were always faithful to their first
+boyish friendship, often working together, but never with any spirit
+of rivalry. Salviati's style was bold and spirited; he was rich in
+invention, but perhaps a little wild in the matter of draperies and
+bizarre costumes. His colouring is more pleasing than that of Vasari,
+but is diffusive and wanting in depth.
+
+DOMENICO CONTI never became famous, but in spite of want of genius, he
+was Andrea's favourite pupil. All his master's designs and cartoons came
+into his possession at Andrea's death, but he was unfortunately robbed
+of them soon afterwards. The inscription to Andrea del Sarto which once
+existed in the church of SS. Annunziata was put up by Conti.
+
+JACOPO DEL CONTE (1510-1598), who in Vasari's time lived in Rome, is
+chiefly noted for his likenesses of several pontiffs and personages
+of the Papal Court. There are a few altar-pieces by him in Rome, and a
+_Deposition_ in the church of the Misericordia in Florence, but he was
+almost exclusively a portrait painter.
+
+ANDREA SGUAZZELLA, called NANNOCCIO, remained in France after having
+accompanied Andrea del Sarto thither. Cardinal Tournon took him under
+his patronage, and he painted a large number of works in the style of
+Andrea.
+
+JACOPO, called JACONE, was another of Andrea's favourite disciples. His
+frescoes, of which some existed till of late years on the façade of the
+Palazzo Buondelmonte, in Florence, were much in Del Sarto's manner.
+He assisted his master in a great many of his works, while of his
+independent paintings many were sent to France; no doubt some of these,
+as well as Sguazzella's, figure under the master's name in that list of
+fifty works given by Argenville. He was too idle and fond of pleasure
+to rise to eminence, though he did some good frescoes in the Palazzo
+Capponi at Florence, and in the Capponi Villa at Montici, and assisted
+Jacopo da Pontormo in the Hall of the Medici villa at Careggi. He died
+in 1553, in great poverty.
+
+PIER FRANCESCO DI JACOPO DI SANDRO was said to have had some talent. He
+and Domenico Conti were employed among others in decorating the court of
+the Palazzo Vecchio on the occasion of Cosimo de' Medici's marriage with
+Leonora di Toledo. There are some altar-pieces of his in the church of
+Santo Spirito, Florence.
+
+SOLOSMEO, RAFFAELLO, and BERNARDINO DEL BUDA were three _garzoni_ in
+Andrea's studio. They were employed in the subordinate work and manual
+labour, but were not trained as artists.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+
+  1886. G. GRUYER. Fra Bartolommeo della Porta and M. Albertinelli.
+  1903. F. KNAPP. Fra Bartolommeo della Porta.
+  1922. H. GABLENTZ. Fra Bartolommeo.
+  1902. M. E. JAMES. Fra Bartolommeo.
+  1899. H. GUINNESS. Andrea del Sarto. (The Great Masters Series.)
+  1905. MASTERPIECES OF ANDREA DEL SARTO. (Gowan's Art Books.)
+  1928. F. KNAPP. Andrea del Sarto.
+  1864-66. CROWE AND CAVALCASELLE. A New History of Painting in Italy
+  from the 2nd to the 16th Century. Three Volumes.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea D'Agnolo, by
+Leader Scott
+
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diff --git a/7222-8.zip b/7222-8.zip
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea D'agnolo, by Leader Scott
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea D'Agnolo, by Leader Scott
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea D'Agnolo
+
+Author: Leader Scott
+
+Editor: Horace Shipp
+        Flora Kendrick
+
+
+Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7222]
+This file was first posted on March 27, 2003
+Last Updated: May 7, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRA BARTOLOMMEO AND ANDREA ***
+
+
+
+
+Text file produced by Michelle Shephard, Tiffany Vergon, Charles
+Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+HTML file produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      FRA BARTOLOMMEO and ANDREA D'AGNOLO
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By Leader Scott
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Author Of "A Nook In The Apennines" <br /> <br /> Re-Edited By Horace Shipp
+      and Flora Kendrick, A.R.B.S.
+    </h3>
+    <div class="middle">
+      <p>
+        <i>The reproductions in this series are from official photographs of the
+        National Collections, or from photographs by Messrs. Andersen, Alinari
+        or Braun.</i>Unfortunately there are no images included in this file)
+      </p>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_FORE" id="link2H_FORE"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      FOREWORD
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael: the three great names of the noblest
+      period of the Renaissance take our minds from the host of fine artists who
+      worked alongside them. Nevertheless beside these giants a whole host of
+      exquisite artists have place, and not least among them the three painters
+      with whom Mr. Leader Scott has dealt in these pages. Fra Bartolommeo
+      linking up with the religious art of the preceding period, with that of
+      Masaccio, of Piero de Cosimo, his senior student in the studio of Cosimo
+      Roselli, and at last with that of the definitely "modern" painters of the
+      Renaissance, Raphael, Leonardo and Michelangelo himself, is a transition
+      painter in this supreme period. Technique and the work of hand and brain
+      are rapidly taking the place of inspiration and the desire to convey a
+      message. The aesthetic sensation is becoming an end in itself. The
+      scientific painters, perfecting their studies of anatomy and of
+      perspective, having a conscious mastery over their tools and their
+      mediums, are taking the place of such men as Fra Angelico.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a painter at this end of a period of transition&mdash;a painter whose
+      spiritual leanings would undoubtedly have been with the earlier men, but
+      whose period was too strong for him&mdash;Fra Bartolommeo is of particular
+      interest; and Albertinelli, for all the fiery surface difference of his
+      outlook is too closely bound by the ties of his friendship for the Frate
+      to have any other viewpoint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrea del Sarto presents yet another phenomenon: that of the artist
+      endowed with all the powers of craftsmanship yet serving an end neither
+      basically spiritual nor basically aesthetic, but definitely professional.
+      We have George Vasari's word for it; and Vasari's blame upon the
+      extravagant and too-well-beloved Lucrezia. To-day we are so accustomed to
+      the idea of the professional attitude to art that we can accept it in
+      Andrea without concern. Not that other and earlier artists were
+      unconcerned with the aspect of payments. The history of Italian art is
+      full of quarrels and bickerings about prices, the calling in of referees
+      to decide between patron and painter, demands and refusals of payment.
+      Even the unworldly Fra Bartolommeo was the centre of such quarrels, and
+      although his vow of poverty forbade him to receive money for his work, the
+      order to which he belonged stood out firmly for the <i>scudi</i> which the
+      Frate's pictures brought them. In justice to Andrea it must be added that
+      this was not the only motive for his activities; it was not without cause
+      that the men of his time called him "<i>senza errori</i>," the faultless
+      painter; and the production of a vast quantity of his work rather than
+      good prices for individual pictures made his art pay to the extent it did.
+      A pot-boiler in masterpieces, his works have place in every gallery of
+      importance, and he himself stands very close to the three greatest; men of
+      the Renaissance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Both Fra Bartolommeo and Albertinelli are little known in this country.
+      Practically nothing has been written about them and very few of their
+      works are in either public galleries or private collections. It is in
+      Italy, of course, that one must study their originals, although the great
+      collections usually include one or two. Most interesting from the
+      viewpoint of the study of art is the evolution of the work of the
+      artist-monk as he came under the influence of the more dramatic modern and
+      frankly sensational work of Raphael, of the Venetians and of Michelangelo.
+      In this case (many will say in that of the art of the world) this tendency
+      detracted rather than helped the work. The draperies, the dramatic poses,
+      the artistic sensation arrests the mind at the surface of the picture. It
+      is indeed strange that this devout churchman should have succumbed to the
+      temptation, and there are moments when one suspects that his somewhat
+      spectacular pietism disguised the spirit of one whose mind had little to
+      do with the mysticism of the mediaeval church. Or perhaps it was that the
+      strange friendship between him and Albertinelli, the man of the cloister
+      and the man of the world, effected some alchemy in the mind of each. The
+      story of that lifelong friendship, strong enough to overcome the
+      difficulties of a definite partnership between the strict life of the
+      monastery and the busy life of the <i>bottega</i>, is one of the most
+      fascinating in art history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Leader Scott has in all three lives the opportunity for fascinating
+      studies, and his book presents them to us with much of the flavour of the
+      period in which they lived. Perhaps to-day we should incline to modify his
+      acceptance of the Vasari attitude to Lucrezia, especially since he himself
+      tends to withdraw the charges against her, but leaves her as the
+      villainess of the piece upon very little evidence. The inclusion of a
+      chapter upon Ghirlandajo, treated merely as a follower of Fra Bartolommeo,
+      scarcely does justice in modern eyes to this fine artist, whose own day
+      and generation did him such honour and paid him so well. But the author's
+      general conclusions as to the place in art and the significance of the
+      lives of the three painters with whom he is chiefly concerned remains
+      unchallenged, and we have in the volume a necessary study to place
+      alongside those of Leonardo, of Michelangelo and of Raphael for an
+      understanding of the culmination of the Renaissance in Italy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      HORACE SHIPP.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <b>CONTENTS</b>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_FORE"> FOREWORD </a>
+    </p>
+		<p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> <b>FRA BARTOLOMMEO.</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. THOUGHTS ON THE RENAISSANCE. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. THE "BOTTEGA" OF COSIMO ROSELLI. A.D.
+      1475-1486. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. THE GARDEN AND THE CLOISTER. A.D.
+      1487-1495. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. SAN MARCO. A.D. 1496-1500. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. FRA BARTOLOMMEO IN THE CONVENT. A.D.
+      1504-1509. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. ALBERTINELLI IN THE WORLD. A.D.
+      1501-1510. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. CONVENT PARTNERSHIP. A.D. 1510&mdash;1513.
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. CLOSE OF LIFE. A.D. 1514&mdash;1517.
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc2">
+      <a href="#link2H_PART"> PART I. SCHOLARS OF FRA BARTOLOMMEO. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc2">
+      <a href="#link2H_PART2"> PART II. SCHOLARS OF MARIOTTO ALBERTINELLI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. RIDOLFO GHIRLANDAJO. A.D. 1483&mdash;1560.
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> <b>ANDREA D'AGNOLO</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER I. YOUTH AND EARLY WORKS. A.D. 1487-1511.
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER II. THE SERVITE CLOISTER. A.D. 1511-1512.
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER III. SOCIAL LIFE AND MARRIAGE. A.D.
+      1511-1516. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER IV. WORKS IN FLORENCE. A.D. 1511-1515.
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER V. GOING TO FRANCE. A.D. 1518-1519. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER VI. ANDREA AND OTTAVIANO DE' MEDICI. A.D.
+      1521-1523. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER VII. THE PLAGUE AND THE SIEGE. A.D.
+      1525-1531. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER VIII. SCHOLARS OF ANDREA DEL SARTO. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_BIBL"> BIBLIOGRAPHY </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      FRA BARTOLOMMEO.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I. THOUGHTS ON THE RENAISSANCE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It seems to be a law of nature that progress, as well as time, should be
+      marked by periods of alternate light and darkness&mdash;day and night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This law is nowhere more apparent than in the history of Art. Three times
+      has the world been illuminated by the full brilliance of Art, and three
+      times has a corresponding period of darkness ensued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first day dawned in Egypt and Assyria, and its works lie buried in the
+      tombs of prehistoric Pharaohs and Ninevite kings. The second day the sun
+      rose on the shores of many-isled Greece, and shed its rays over Etruria
+      and Rome, and ere it set, temples and palaces were flooded with beauty.
+      The gods had taken human form, and were come to dwell with men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The third day arising in Italy, lit up the whole western world with the
+      glow of colour and fervour, and its fading rays light us yet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first period was that of mythic art; the world like a child wondering
+      at all around tried to express in myths the truths it could not
+      comprehend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second was pagan art which satisfies itself that in expressing the
+      perfection of humanity, it unfolds divinity. The third era of Christian
+      art, conscious that the divine lies beyond the human, fails in aspiring to
+      express infinitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tracing one of these periods from its rise, how truly this similitude of
+      the dawn of day is carried out. See at the first streak of light how dim,
+      stiff, and soulless all things appear! Trees and objects bear precisely
+      the relation to their own appearance in broad daylight as the wooden
+      Madonnas of the Byzantine school do to those of Raphael.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next, when the sun&mdash;the true light&mdash;first appears, how it bathes
+      the sea and the hills in an ethereal glory not their own! What fair liquid
+      tints of blue, and rose, and glorious gold! This period which, in art,
+      began with Giotto and ended with Botticelli, culminated in Fra Angelico,
+      who flooded the world of painting with a heavenly spiritualism not
+      material, and gave his dreams of heaven the colours of the first pure rays
+      of sunshine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as the sun rises, nature takes her real tints gradually. We see every
+      thing in its own colour; the gold and the rose has faded away with the
+      truer light, and a stern realism takes its place. The human form must be
+      expressed, in all its solidity and truth, not only in its outward
+      semblance, but the hidden soul must be seen through the veil of flesh. And
+      in this lies the reason of the decline; only to a few great masters it was
+      given to reveal spirituality in humanity&mdash;the others could only
+      emulate form and colour, and failed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is impossible to contemplate art apart from religion; as truly as the
+      celestial sun is the revealer of form, so surely is the heavenly light of
+      religion the first inspirer of art.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where would the Egyptian, Assyrian, and Etruscan paintings and sculptures
+      have been but for the veneration of the mystic gods of the dead, which
+      both prompted and preserved them?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What would Greek sculpture have been without the deified personifications
+      of the mysterious powers of nature which inspired it? and it is the fact
+      of the pagan religion being both sensuous and realistic which explains the
+      perfection of Greek art. The highest ideal being so low as not to soar
+      beyond the greatest perfection of humanity, was thus within the grasp of
+      the artist to express. Given a manly figure with the fullest development
+      of strength; a female one showing the greatest perfection of form; and a
+      noble man whose features express dignity and mental power;&mdash;the ideal
+      of a Hercules, a Venus, and a Jupiter is fully expressed, and the pagan
+      mind satisfied. The spirit of admirers was moved more by beauty of form
+      than by its hidden significance. In the great Venus, one recognises the
+      woman before feeling the goddess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As with their sculpture, without doubt it was also with painting. Mr.
+      Symonds, in his <i>Renaissance of the Fine Arts</i>, speaks of the Greek
+      revival as entirely an age of sculpture; but the solitary glance into the
+      more perishable art of painting among the Greeks, to be seen at Cortona,
+      reveals the exquisite perfection to which this branch was also brought. It
+      is a painting in encaustic, and has been used as a door for his oven by
+      the contadino who dug it up&mdash;yet it remains a marvel of genius. The
+      subject is a female head&mdash;a muse, or perhaps only a portrait; the
+      delicacy and mellowness of the flesh tints equal those of Raphael or
+      Leonardo, and a lock of hair lying across her breast is so exquisitely
+      painted that it seems to move with her breath. The features are of the
+      large-eyed regular Greek type, womanly dignity is in every line, but it is
+      an essentially pagan face&mdash;the Christian soul has never dawned in
+      those eyes! With this before us, we cannot doubt that Greek art found its
+      expression as much in colour as in form and that the same religion
+      inspired both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In an equal degree Renaissance Art has its roots in Christianity; but the
+      religion is deeper and greater, and has left art behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The early Christians must have felt this when they expressed everything in
+      symbols, for these are merely suggestive, and allow the imagination full
+      play around and beyond them; they are mere stepping-stones to the ideal
+      which exists but is as yet inexpressible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Myths and symbols always mark the dawn of a religion, incarnation and
+      realism its full growth." So after a time when the first vague wonder and
+      ecstasy are over, symbols no longer content people; they want to bring
+      religion home to them in a more tangible form, to humanize it, in fact.
+      From this want it arises that nature next to religion inspires art, and
+      finally takes its place. For it follows as a matter of course that as art
+      is a realistic interpreter of the spiritual, so it is more easy to follow
+      nature than spirituality, nature being the outward or realistic expression
+      of the mind of God.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a saying of Buffalmacco, who was <i>not</i> one of the most devout
+      painters of the fourteenth century, "Do not let us think of anything but
+      to cover our walls with saints, and out of disrespect to the demons to
+      make men more devout." And Savonarola, though he has been accused of being
+      one of the causes of the decline, thus upheld the sacred influences of
+      art; when he exclaimed in one of his fervent bursts of eloquence, "You see
+      that Saint there in the Church and say, 'I will live a good life and be
+      like him.'" If these were the feelings of the least devout and the
+      religious fanatic, how hallowed must the influences of Christian painting
+      have been to the intermediate ranks. Mr. Symonds beautifully expresses the
+      tendency of that time: "The eyes of the worshipper should no longer have a
+      mere stock or stone to contemplate; his imagination should be helped by
+      the dogmatic presentation of the scenes of sacred history, and his
+      devotion quickened by lively images of the passion of our Lord.... The
+      body and soul moreover should be reconciled, and God's likeness should be
+      once more acknowledged in the features and limbs of men." [Footnote:
+      Symonds' <i>Renaissance of the Fine Arts</i>, chap. i. p. 11.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The school of Giotto was the first to feel this need of the soul. He,
+      taking his ideas from nature, clothed the soul in a thin veil; the
+      Italians call his school that of poetic art; it reached sentiment and
+      poetry, but did not pass them. Yet the thirteenth century was sublime for
+      the expression of the idea; one only has to study the intense meaning in
+      the works of Giotto, and Orcagna, Duccio, and the Lorenzetti of Siena to
+      perceive this. The fourteenth century, on the contrary, rendered itself
+      glorious for manifestation of form. "Artists thought the veil of ideality
+      a poor thing, and wished to give the solidity of the body to the soul;
+      they stole every secret from nature; the senses were content, but not
+      sentiment." [Footnote: <i>Purismo nell' Arte</i>, da Cesare Guasti.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The artists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, of whom we have to
+      speak, blended the two schools, and became perfection as far as they went.
+      Michelangelo drew more from the vigorous thirteenth-century masters, and
+      Raphael from the more sensuous followers of Masaccio and Lippi. The former
+      tried to put the Christian soul into his works, but its infinite depth was
+      unattainable. As his many unfinished works prove, he always felt some
+      great overwhelming meaning in his inmost soul, which all his passionate
+      artistic yearnings were inadequate to express. Raphael tried to bring
+      realism into religion through painting, and to give us the scenes of our
+      Lord's and the Apostles' lives in such a humanized aspect, that we should
+      feel ourselves of his nature. But the incarnation of religion in art
+      defeated its own ends; sensuousness was introduced in place of the calm,
+      unearthly spirituality of the earlier masters. Compare the cartoon of S.
+      Paul preaching at Athens, in which he has all the majesty of a Cæsar in
+      the Forum, with the lowly spirit of the Apostle's life! In truth, Raphael
+      failed to approach nearer to sublimity than Fra Angelico, with all his
+      faulty drawing but pure spirit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After him, artists loved form and colour for themselves rather than for
+      the spiritual meaning. Miss Owen [Footnote: <i>Art Schools of Medieval
+      Christendom</i>, edited by Ruskin.] accuses Raphael of having rendered Art
+      pagan, but this seems blaming him for the weakness of his followers, who
+      took for their type his works rather than his ideal. The causes of the
+      decline were many, and are not centred in one man. As long as Religion
+      slumbered in monasticism and dogma, Art seizing on the human parts, such
+      as the maternity of the Madonna, the personifications of saints who had
+      lived in the world, was its adequate exponent. The religion awakened by
+      the aesthetic S. Francis, who loved all kinds of beauty, was of the kind
+      to be fed by pictures. But when Savonarola had aroused the fervour of the
+      nation to its highest point, when beauty was nothing, the world nothing,
+      in comparison to the infinity of God;&mdash;then art, finding itself
+      powerless to express this overwhelming infinity, fell back on more earthly
+      founts of inspiration, the classics and the poets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lorenzo de' Medici and Pope Nicholas V. had fully as much to do with the
+      decline as Savonarola. The Pope in Rome, and Lorenzo in Florence, led art
+      to the verge of paganism; Savonarola would have kept it on the confines of
+      purism; it was divided and fell, passing through the various steps of
+      decadence, the mannerists and the eclectics, to rise again in this
+      nineteenth century with what is after all its true aim, the interpretation
+      of nature, and the illustration of the poetry of a nation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But with the decadence we have happily nothing to do; the artists of whom
+      we speak first, Fra Bartolommeo and Albertinelli, belong to the
+      culmination of art on its rising side, while Andrea del Sarto stands as
+      near to the greatest artists on the other side, and is the last of the
+      group before the decline. On Fra Bartolommeo the spirituality of Fra
+      Angelico still lingered, while the perfection of Raphael illumined him.
+      Andrea del Sarto, on the other side, had gathered into his hands the
+      gleams of genius from all the great artists who were his elder
+      contemporaries, and so blending them as to form seemingly a style of his
+      own, distinct from any, has left on our walls and in our galleries
+      hundreds of masterpieces of colour, as gay and varied as the tints the
+      orientals weave into their wondrous fabrics.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It might be said with truth that Fra Bartolommeo painted for the soul, and
+      Andrea del Sarto for the eye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II. THE "BOTTEGA" OF COSIMO ROSELLI. A.D. 1475-1486.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Amongst the thousand arteries in which the life blood of the Renaissance
+      coursed in all its fulness, none were so busy or so important as the
+      "botteghe" of the artists. In these the genius of the great masters, the
+      Pleiades of stars at the culmination of art in Florence, was either
+      tenderly nursed, or sharply pruned into vigour by struggling against
+      discouragement and envy. In these the spirit of awakened devotion found an
+      outlet, in altarpieces and designs for church frescoes which were to
+      influence thousands. Here the spirit of poetry, brooding in the mysterious
+      lines of Dante, or echoing from past ages in the myths of the Greeks, took
+      form and glowed on the walls in mighty cartoons to be made imperishable in
+      fresco. Here the spirit of luxury was satisfied by beautiful designs for
+      ornaments, dress stuffs, tapestries, vases and "cassoni," &amp;c., which
+      brought beauty into every life, and made each house a poem. The soul, the
+      mind, and the body, could alike be supplied at those fountains of the
+      beautiful, the artshops or schools.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whilst Michelangelo as a youth was drawing from the cartoons of the
+      Sassetti chapel in the school of Domenico Ghirlandajo, Cosimo Roselli was
+      just receiving as a pupil a boy only a little behind him in genius. A
+      small, delicate-faced, spiritual-eyed boy of nine years, known as Baccio
+      della Porta, who came with a roll of drawings under his arm and high hopes
+      in his soul, no doubt trotting along manfully beside Cosimo's old friend,
+      Benedetto da Majano, the sculptor, who had recommended his being placed in
+      the studio.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the table given in the note [Footnote: Pietro, a Genoese, came in 1400
+      to the parish of S. Michele, at Montecuccioli in Mugello; he was a
+      peasant, and had a son Jacopo, who was father of Paolo, the muleteer; and
+      three other sons, Bartolo, Giusto, and Jacopo, who had a <i>podere</i> at
+      Soffignano, near Prato. Paolo married first Bartolommea, daughter of
+      Zanobi di Gallone, by whom he had a son, Bartolommeo, known as Baccio
+      della Porta, born 1475. The first wife dying, Paolo married Andrea di
+      Michaele di Cenni, who had four sons, Piero, Domenico, Michele, and
+      Francesco; only Piero lived to grow up, and he became a priest. [<i>Favoured
+      by Sig. Milanesi.</i>]] it will be seen that Baccio was the son of Paolo,
+      a muleteer, which no doubt was a profitable trade in those days when the
+      country roads were mere mule-tracks, and the traffic between different
+      towns was carried on almost entirely by horses and mulepacks. There is
+      some doubt as to the place of Baccio's birth, which occurred in 1475.
+      Vasari gives it as Savignano near Prato; Crowe and Cavalcaselle [Footnote:
+      Vol. iii. chap. xiii. p. 427.] assert it was Suffignano, near Florence,
+      where they say Paolo's brothers, Jacopo and Giusto, were contadini or
+      peasants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But on consulting the post-office authorities we find no place called
+      Suffignano near Florence; it must therefore have been a village near Prato
+      called Soffignano, which from similarity of sound Vasari confused with the
+      larger place, Savignano. This is the more probable, for Rosini asserts
+      that "Benedetto da Majano, <i>who had bought a podere near Prato</i>, knew
+      him and took him into his affections, and by his means placed him with
+      Cosimo." [Footnote: Rosini, <i>Storia della Pittura</i>, chap. xvii. p.
+      47.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is certainly probable that Paolo's wife lived with his family during
+      his wanderings, because it is the true Italian custom, and Baccio was in
+      that case born in his uncle's house; for it is not till 1480 that we find
+      Paolo retired from trade and set up in a house of his own in Florence at
+      the gate of S. Pier Gattolini, now the Porta Romana.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The friendship begun at Prato must have been continued in Florence, for in
+      1480 Paolo not only owned that house at the gate of S. Pier Gattolini, but
+      was the proud possessor of a podere at Brozzi, which yielded six barrels
+      of wine. He is a merciful man too, for among his possessions are two mules
+      <i>disutili e vecchi</i> (old and useless). At this time Baccio was six
+      years old, and his three stepbrothers quite babies. [Footnote: Archives of
+      Florence, Portate al Castato, 1480-1.] Paolo, as well as his mules, had
+      earned his repose, being certainly old, if not useless, and was anxious
+      for his little sons to be placed out in the world as early as possible.
+      Thus it came that in 1484 Baccio was taken away from his brothers, who
+      played under the shadow of the old gateway, and was put to do the drudgery
+      of the apprenticeship to art. He had to grind colours for Cosimo&mdash;who,
+      as we know, used a great deal of colour, having dazzled the eyes of the
+      Pope with the brilliancy of his blue and gold in the Sistine Chapel some
+      years before&mdash;he had to sweep out the studio, no doubt assisted by
+      Mariotto Albertinelli, a boy of his own age, and to run errands, carrying
+      designs for inspection to expectant brides who wanted the chests painted
+      to hold their wedding clothes, or doing the messenger between his master
+      and the nuns of S. Ambrogio, who paid Cosimo their gold florins by the
+      hand of the boy in 1484 and 1485. [Footnote: Note to Crowe and
+      Cavalcaselle, vol. iii. chap. xiii. p. 429.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether his age made him a more acceptable means of communication with the
+      nuns, or whether Pier di Cosimo, the elder pupil, already displayed his
+      hatred of womankind, I know not; perhaps the boy already showed that
+      innate devotion and especial fitness for sanctity which marks his entire
+      art career. Truly everything in his youthful life combined to lead his
+      thoughts to higher things. The first fresco at which he assisted was in
+      this solemn cloister of St. Ambrogio, and the subject the <i>Miracle of
+      the Sacrament</i>; the saintly air of the place, the calm faces of the
+      white-hooded nuns, must all have had an influence in inspiring his
+      youthful mind with the spirit of devotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Baccio's fellow-students were not many, but they formed an interesting
+      group. Pier di Cosimo was the head man, and eldest of all; with such ties
+      was he bound to his master and godfather, that he was known better as
+      Cosimo's Peter than by his own patronymic of Chimenti. He was at this time
+      twenty-two years of age, his registry in the Florentine Guild proves his
+      birth in 1462, as the son of Lorenzo, son of Piero, son of Antonio,
+      Chimenti.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Being the eldest of five brothers, it is difficult to conceive how a
+      member of a large family grew up developing such eccentricities as are
+      usually the fruit of isolation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the studio Piero was industrious and steady, working earnestly, whether
+      he was assisting his master's designs or carrying out his own fancies of
+      monsters, old myths, and classic fairy stories. No doubt the two boys,
+      Mariotto and Baccio, found little companionship in this abstracted young
+      man always dreaming over his own ideas. If they told him an anecdote, he
+      would look up vacantly at the end not having heard a word; at other times
+      every little noise or burst of laughter would annoy him, and he would be
+      immoderately angry with the flies and mosquitos.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Piero had already been to Rome, and had assisted Cosimo in his fresco of
+      <i>Christ preaching on Lake Tiberias</i>; indeed most judges thought his
+      landscape the best part of that work, and the talent he showed obtained
+      him several commissions. He took the portraits of Virginio Orsini, Ruberto
+      Sanseverino and Duke Valentino, son of Pope Alessandro VI. He was much
+      esteemed as a portrait painter also in Florence, and from his love of
+      classical subjects, and extreme finish of execution, he ranked as one of
+      the best painters of "cassoni," or bridal-linen chests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This fashion excited the indignation of Savonarola, who in one of his
+      sermons exclaimed, "Do not let your daughters prepare their 'corredo'
+      (trousseau) in a chest with pagan paintings; is it right for a Christian
+      spouse to be familiar with Venus before the Virgin, or Mars before the
+      saints?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus Piero being a finished painter, was often Cosimo Roselli's substitute
+      in the instruction of the two boys, for Cosimo having come home from Rome
+      with some money, lived at his ease; but still continued to paint frescoes
+      in company with Piero.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another pupil was Andrea di Cosimo, whose peculiar branch of art was that
+      of the grotesque. He no doubt drew designs for friezes and fountains, for
+      architraves and door mouldings, in which distorted faces look out from all
+      kinds of writhing scrolls; and lizards, dragons, snakes, and creeping
+      plants, mingle according to the artist's fancy. Andrea was however often
+      employed in more serious work, as the records of the Servite Convent
+      prove, for they contain the note of payment to him, in 1510, for the
+      curtains of the altarpiece which Filippino Lippi had painted. These
+      curtains were till lately attributed to Andrea del Sarto, or Francia
+      Bigio.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is the Andrea Feltrini mentioned by Crowe and Cavalcaselle as working
+      in the cloister of the Servi with Andrea del Sarto and Francia Bigio
+      between 1509 and 1514.[Footnote: <i>History of Painting</i>, vol. iii.
+      chap. xvii. p. 546.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Baccio's dearest friend in the studio was a boy nearly his own age,
+      Mariotto Albertinelli, son of Biagio di Bindo, born October 13, 1474. He
+      had experienced the common lot of young artists in those days, and had
+      been apprenticed to a gold-beater, but preferred the profession of
+      painter. From the first these two lads, being thrown almost entirely
+      together in the work of the studio, formed one of those pure, lasting
+      friendships, of which so many exist in the annals of art, and so few in
+      the material world. They helped each other in the drudgery, and enjoyed
+      their higher studies together; but they did not draw all their
+      inspirations from the over-coloured works of Cosimo&mdash;although
+      Mariotto once reproduced his red-winged cherubim in after life [Footnote:
+      In the 'Trinity' in the Belle Arti, Florence.]&mdash;nor from the hard and
+      laboured myths of Piero.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They went to higher founts, for scarcely a trace of these early influences
+      are to be found in their paintings. Vasari says they studied the <i>Cose
+      di Leonardo</i>. The great artist had at this time left the studio of
+      Verocchio, and was fast rising into fame in Florence, so it is most
+      probable that two youths with strong artistic tendencies would study, not
+      only the sketches, but also the precepts, of the great man. Besides this
+      there were two national art-schools open to students in Florence: these
+      were the frescoes of Masaccio and Lippi in the Carmine, and the Medicean
+      garden in the Via Cavour, then called Via Larga.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III. THE GARDEN AND THE CLOISTER. A.D. 1487-1495.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The two boys left the studio of Cosimo Roselli at an early age. There had
+      been trouble in the house of Paolo the ex-muleteer, and Baccio's already
+      serious mind had been awed by the sight of death. His little brother,
+      Domenico, died in 1486 at seven years of age. His father, Paolo, died in
+      1487; thus Baccio, at the age of twelve or thirteen, was left the head of
+      the family, and the supporter of his stepmother and her babes. This may
+      account for his leaving Cosimo so young, and setting up his studio with
+      Mariotto as his companion, in his own house at the gate of S. Pier
+      Gattolini; this partnership began presumably about the year 1490.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Conscious that they were not perfected by Cosimo's teaching, they both set
+      themselves to undergo a strict discipline in art, and, friends as they
+      were, their paths began to diverge from this point. Their natural tastes
+      led them to opposite schools&mdash;Baccio to the sacred shrine of art in
+      the shadowed church, Mariotto to the greenery and sunshine of the Medici
+      garden, where beauty of nature and classic treasures were heaped in
+      profusion; whose loggie [Footnote: Arched colonnades.] glowed with the
+      finest forms of Greek sculpture, resuscitated from the tombs of ages to
+      inspire newer artists to perfection, but alas! also to debase the aim of
+      purely Christian art.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Baccio's calm devotional mind no doubt disliked the turmoil of this
+      garden, crowded with spirited youths; the tone of pagan art was not in
+      accordance with his ideal, and so he learned from Masaccio and Lippi that
+      love of true form and harmonious composition, which he perfected
+      afterwards by a close study of Leonardo da Vinci, whose principles of <i>chiaroscuro</i>
+      he seems to have completely carried out. With this training he rose to
+      such great celebrity even in his early manhood, that Rosini [Footnote:
+      Rosini, <i>Storia della Pittura</i>, chap. xvii. p. 48.] calls him "the
+      star of the Florentine school in Leonardo and Michelangelo's absence," and
+      he attained a grandeur almost equal to the latter, in the S. Mark and SS.
+      Peter and Paul of his later years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Mariotto was revelling in the Eden of art, drawing daily beneath
+      the Loggie&mdash;where the orange-trees grew close to the pillars&mdash;from
+      the exquisite statues and "torsi," peopling the shades with white forms,
+      or copying cartoons by the older masters, which hung against the walls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The <i>custode</i> of all these treasures was Bertoldo, an old sculptor,
+      who boasted of having been the scholar of Donatello, and also heir to his
+      art possessions. He could also point to the bronze pulpits of San Lorenzo,
+      which he finished, as proof of his having inherited a portion of his
+      master's spirit. Bertoldo, having doubtless rendered to Duke Cosimo's
+      keeping his designs by Donatello, which were preserved in the garden,
+      obtained the post of instructor there; but his age may have prevented his
+      keeping perfect order, and the younger spirits overpowered him. There were
+      Michelangelo, with all the youthful power of passion and force which he
+      afterwards imparted to his works, and the audacious Torrigiano, with his
+      fierce voice, huge bulk, and knitted brows, who was himself a discord like
+      the serpent in Eden. Easily offended, he was prompt in offering outrage.
+      Did any other young man show talent or surpass him, revenge deep and mean
+      as that of Bandinelli to Michelangelo was sure to follow, the envied work
+      being spoiled in his rage. Then there were the fun-loving Francesco
+      Granacci, and the witty Rustici, as full of boyish pranks as they were of
+      genius&mdash;what could one old man do among so many?&mdash;and now comes
+      the impetuous Mariotto to add one more unruly member to his class.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How well one can imagine the young men&mdash;in loose blouses confined at
+      the waist, or in buff jerkins and close-fitting hose, with jaunty cloaks
+      or doublets, and little red or black caps, set on flowing locks cut square
+      in front&mdash;passing beneath the shadows of the arches among the dim
+      statues, or crossing the garden in the sunshine amid the orange-trees,
+      under the splendid blue Italian skies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We can see them painting, modelling, or drawing large cartoons in
+      charcoal, while old Bertoldo passes from easel to easel, criticising and
+      fault-finding, detailing for the hundredth time Donatello's maxims, and
+      moving on, heedless or deaf to the irreverent jokes of his ungrateful
+      pupils.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, like a vision of power and grandeur, Lorenzo il Magnifico enters
+      with a group of his classic friends. Politian and the brothers Pulci
+      admire again the ancient sculptures which are to them as illustrations of
+      their readings, and Lorenzo notes the works of all the students who were
+      destined to contribute to the glory of the many Medicean palaces. How the
+      burly Torrigiano's heart burns within him when the Duke praises his
+      compeer's works!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sometimes Madonna Alfonsina, the mother of Lorenzo, and widow of Piero,
+      walked here, and she also took an interest in the studies of the youths.
+      Mariotto especially attracted her by his talent and zeal. She commissioned
+      him to paint some pictures for her to send as a present to her own family,
+      the Orsini of Rome. These works, of which the subjects are not known,
+      passed afterwards into the possession of Cæsar Borgia. She also sat to
+      Mariotto for her own portrait. It is easily imagined how elated the
+      excitable youth became at this notice from the mother of the magnificent
+      Lorenzo. He had dreams of making a greater name than even his master,
+      Cosimo, whose handiwork was in the Sistine; of excelling Michelangelo, of
+      whose genius the world was beginning to talk; and, as adhering to a party
+      was the only way to success in those days, he became a strong Pallesco,
+      [Footnote: The Palleschi were the partizans of the Medici, so called
+      because they took as their standard the Palle, or Balls, the arms of that
+      family.] trusting wholly in the favour of Madonna Alfonsina.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He even absented himself almost constantly from the studio, which Baccio
+      shared with him, and worked at the Medici palace, [Footnote: This break is
+      signified by Baldinucci, <i>Opere</i>, vol. iv. p. 84, and by Vasari, who
+      says that after the exile of Piero he returned to Baccio.] but, alas! in
+      1494 this brilliant aspect of his fortunes changed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lorenzo being dead, Piero de' Medici was banished, the great palace fell
+      into the hands of the republican Signoria, and all the painters were left
+      without patronage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mariotto, very much cast down, bethought himself of a friend who never
+      failed him, and whose love was not affected by party; and, returning to
+      the house of Baccio, he set to work, most likely in a renewed spirit of
+      confidence in the comrade who stood by him when the princes in whom he
+      trusted failed him. Whatever his frame of mind, he began now to study
+      earnestly the works of Baccio, who, while he was seeking patronage in the
+      palace, had been purifying his genius in the Church. Mariotto imbibed more
+      and more of Baccio's style, till their works so much resembled one another
+      that indifferent judges could scarcely distinguish them apart. It would be
+      interesting if we could see those early pictures done for Madonna
+      Alfonsina, and compare them with the style formed after this second
+      adherence to Fra Bartolommeo. What his manner afterwards became we have a
+      proof in the <i>Salutation</i> (1503), in which there is grand simplicity
+      of motive combined with the most extreme richness of execution and fullest
+      harmony of colour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This second union between the friends could not have been so satisfactory
+      to either as the first pure boyish love, when they had been full of
+      youthful hopes, and felt their hearts expand with the dreams and visions
+      of genius. Now instead of the mere differences between two styles of art,
+      there were differences which much more seriously affected their
+      characters; they were daily sundering, one going slowly towards the
+      cloister, the other to the world. Albertinelli had gained a greater love
+      of worldly success and luxury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Baccio's mind, always attuned to devotion, was now intensified by family
+      sorrows, which no doubt brought him nearer to heaven. Thus softened, he
+      had the more readily received the seeds of faith which Savonarola
+      scattered broadcast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet though every word of the one was a wound to the other, this strangely
+      assorted pair of friends did not part. Rosini well defined their union as
+      "a knot which binds more strongly by pulling contrary ways." [Footnote: <i>Storia
+      della Pittura,</i> chap. xvii. p. 48]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So when Albertinelli, while colouring with zeal a design of Baccio's,
+      would inveigh against all monks, the Dominicans in particular, and
+      Savonarola especially, his friend would argue that the inspired prophet
+      was not an enemy, but a purifier and reformer of art. Probably Baccio was
+      at the Duomo on that Sunday in Lent, 1495, and reported to Mariotto those
+      wondrous words of Savonarola, that "Beauty ought never to be taken apart
+      from the true and good," and how, after quoting the same sentiments from
+      Socrates and Plato, the preacher went on to say, "True beauty is neither
+      in form nor colour, but in light. God is light, and His creatures are the
+      more lovely as they approach the nearer to Him in beauty. And the body is
+      the more beautiful according to the purity of the soul within it." Certain
+      it is that this divine light lived ever after in the paintings of Fra
+      Bartolommeo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He frequented the cloisters of San Marco, where even Lorenzo de' Medici
+      used to go and hear the prior expound Christianity near the rose tree.
+      There were Lorenzo di Credi and Sandro Botticelli, both middle-aged men,
+      of a high standing as artists; there were the Delia Robbias, father and
+      son, and several others. Sandro, while listening, must have taken in the
+      inspired words with the scent and beauty of the roses, whose spirit he
+      gives in so many of his paintings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Baccio, on the contrary, feasted his eyes on the speaker's face,
+      till the very soul within it was imprinted on his mind, from whence he
+      reproduced it in that marvellous likeness, the year after the martyrdom of
+      Savonarola.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is the earliest known work of Fra Bartolommeo, and is a faithful
+      portrait; the deep-sunk eye-socket, and eye like an internal fire, showing
+      the preacher's powerful mind; the prominent aquiline nose and dilating
+      vehement nostril bespeaking his earnestness and decision; the large full
+      mouth alone shows the timorousness which none but himself knew of, so
+      overpowered was it by his excitable spirit. The handling is Baccio's own
+      able style, but Sig. Cavalcaselle thinks the influences of Cosimo Roselli
+      are apparent in the low tone and clouded translucent colour; he signed it
+      "Hieronymi Ferrariensis, a Deo missi prophetæ effigies," a legend which
+      expresses the more than reverence which Baccio cherished for the preacher.
+      This portrait has only lately been identified by its present possessor,
+      Sig. Ermolao Rubieri, who discovered the legend under a coat of paint. Its
+      vicissitudes are traceable from the time when Sig. Averardo (or, as Vasari
+      calls him, Alamanno) Salviati brought it back from Ferrara, where no doubt
+      it had been in the possession of Savonarola's family. Salviati gave it to
+      the convent of San Vincenzo at Prato, from which place Sig. Rubieri
+      purchased it in 1810. The likeness of the reformer in the Belle Arti of
+      Florence has been supposed to be this one, but it is more likely to be the
+      one done by Fra Bartolommeo at Pian di Mugnone in after years, when he
+      drew the friar as S. Peter Martyr, with the wound on his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV. SAN MARCO. A.D. 1496-1500.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Padre Marchese, himself a Dominican, speaks thus of his convent:&mdash;"San
+      Marco has within its walls the Renaissance, a compendium in two artists.
+      Fra Angelico, the painter of the ideal, Fra Bartolommeo, of form. The
+      first closes the antique Tuscan school. He who has seen Fra Angelico, has
+      seen also Giotto, Cimabue, &amp;c. The second represents the modern
+      school. In him are almost comprised Masaccio, Lorenzo di Credi, Leonardo,
+      Buonarroti, and Andrea del Sarto."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first, Fra Angelico, "sets himself to contemplate in God the fount and
+      architype of the beautiful, and, as much as is possible to mortal hands,
+      reproduces and stamps it in those works which a sensual mind cannot
+      understand, but which to the heavenly soul speak an eloquent language. Fra
+      Bartolommeo, with more analysis, works thoughtfully ... he ascends from
+      the effect to the cause, and in created things contemplates a reflection
+      of spiritual beauty."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is true the Dominican order has been as great a patron of arts as the
+      Franciscan of literature. It united with Niccolo Pisano to give form to
+      national architecture. It had sculptors, miniaturists, and glass painters.
+      As a building San Marco has been a shrine of art; since the time that
+      Michelozzi, with the assistance of the Medici, built the convent for Sant'
+      Antonino, and Fra Angelico left the impress of his soul on the walls, a
+      long line of artist monks has lived within its cloisters. With San Marco
+      our story has now to deal, for it is impossible to write Fra Bartolommeo's
+      life without touching on the well-known history of Savonarola. The great
+      preacher's influence in these years, from 1492 to 1497, entered into
+      almost every individual in Florence, either to draw them to devotion, or
+      to stir them up to the greatest opposition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The artists, whose minds were probably the most impressional, were his
+      fervent adherents. He has been accused of being the ruin of art, but "this
+      cry has only arisen in our time; the silence of contemporaries, although
+      not friendly to him, proves that he was not in that century so accused."
+      [Footnote: Gino Capponi, <i>Storia delta Republica di Firenze</i>, lib.
+      vi. chap. ii.] The only mention of anything of artistic value is a
+      "tavoliere" [Footnote: A chess or draught board.] of rich work, spoken of
+      by Burlamacchi and Benivieni, in a "Canzone di un Piagnone sul bruciamento
+      delle Vanità." Savonarola himself was an artist and musician in early
+      life, the love of the beautiful was strong within him, only he would have
+      it go hand in hand with the good and true. His dominant spirit was that of
+      reform; as he tried to regenerate mind, morals, literature, and state
+      government, so he would reform art, and fling over it the spiritual light
+      which illumed his own soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was natural that such a mind should act on the devotional character of
+      Baccio. What could he do but join when every church was full of
+      worshippers, each shrine at the street corners had a crowd of devout women
+      on their knees before it&mdash;when thousands of faces were uplifted in
+      the vast expanse of the Duomo, and every face burned with fervour as the
+      divine flame from the preacher lit the lamp of each soul&mdash;when in the
+      streets he met long processions of men, women, and children, the echoes of
+      whose hymns (Laudi) filled the narrow streets, and went up to the clear
+      air above them?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then came that strange carnival when there were no maskers in the city,
+      but white-robed boys went from house to house to collect the vanities for
+      the burning&mdash;when the flames of the fires, hitherto saturnalian, were
+      the flames of a holocaust, wherein each one cast the sins and temptations,
+      even the pretty things which, though dear to himself, withdrew him from
+      God. And when the white-robed boys came to the studio of the friends at
+      the gate of S. Pier Gattolini, with what sighs and self-immolation Baccio
+      looked for the last time at some of his studies which he judged to come
+      under the head of <i>anathemata</i>, and handed them over to the acolytes.
+      How Mariotto's soul, warm to Pagan art, burned within him at this
+      sacrifice! And how he would talk more than ever against the monks, and
+      hang up his own cartoons and studies of the Greek Venus in the studio for
+      Baccio's behoof!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In these years we have no notice of authentic works done by the youthful
+      partners, though biographers talk of their having commissions for
+      madonnas, and other works of art.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1497 Francesco Valori, the grand-featured, earnest admirer of
+      Savonarola, became Gonfaloniere in the time of Piero de' Medici's exile,
+      [Footnote: Gino Capponi, <i>Storia delta Republica di Firenze</i>, lib.
+      vi. chap. xi. p. 233.] and the friar's party was in the ascendent. Rosini
+      [Footnote: <i>Storia delta Pittura</i>, chap. xvii. p. 48.] says that
+      belonging to a faction was a means of fame, and that the Savonarola party
+      was powerful, giving this as a reason for Baccio's partisanship; but this
+      we can hardly believe, his whole life proved his earnestness. He was much
+      beloved in Florence for his calm upright nature and good qualities. He
+      delighted in the society of pious and learned men, spent much time in the
+      convent, where he had many friends among the monks; yet with all he kept
+      still faithful to his early friend Mariotto, whose life was cast so
+      differently. Savonarola's faction was powerful, but the Medici had still
+      adherents who stirred up a strong party against him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His spirit of reform at length aroused the ire of the Pope, who forbade
+      him to preach. He disobeyed, and the sermons on Ezekiel were scenes of
+      tumult; no longer a group of rapt faces dwelling on his words, but frowns,
+      murmurs, and anathemas from a crowd only kept off him by a circle of armed
+      adherents round his pulpit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length, on June 22nd, the excommunication by Pope Alessandro VI.
+      (Borgia) fell like a thunderclap, and the Medicean youths marched in
+      triumphant procession with torches and secular music to burlesque the
+      Laudi; no doubt Albertinelli was one of these, while Baccio grieved among
+      the awestruck friars in the convent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1498 Savonarola again lifted up his voice; the church was not large
+      enough, so he preached beneath the blue sky on the Piazza San Marco; and
+      Fra Domenico Buonvicini da Pescia, in the eagerness of partisanship, said
+      that his master's words would stand the ordeal of fire. Then came that
+      tumultuous day of April 7th, the "Sunday of the Olives," when the
+      Franciscans and Dominicans argued while the fire burnt out before them,
+      when Savonarola's great spirit quailed within him, and the ordeal failed;
+      a merciful rain quenching the flames which none dared to brave save the
+      undaunted Fra Domenico himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no painting done in the studio on that day we may be sure.
+      Baccio was one of the surging, conflicting crowd gathered beneath the
+      mingling shadows of Orcagna's arches and Arnolfo's great palace, and at
+      eventide he was one of the armed partisans who protected the friar back to
+      his convent, menaced not only by rains from heaven, but by the stormy
+      wrath of an angry populace, defrauded of the sight they came to see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day was the one which determined the painter's future life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was in the city a curious process of crystallisation of all the
+      particles held in solution round the fire the previous day. The Palazzo
+      Vecchio attracted about its doors the "Arrabiati." The "Compagnacci"
+      assembled, armed, by the Duomo. The streets were full of detached parties
+      of Piagnoni, treading ways of peril to their centre, San Marco.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Passions raged and seethed all day, till at the hour of vespers a cry
+      arose, "<i>à San Marco</i>," and thither the multitude&mdash;500
+      Compagnacci, and 300 Palleschi&mdash;rushed, armed with picks and
+      arquebusses, &amp;c. They killed some stray Piagnoni whom they found
+      praying by a shrine, and placed guards at the streets which led to the
+      convent; then the assault began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The church was dimly lighted. Savonarola and Fra Domenico kneeled on the
+      steps of the altar, with many worshippers around them, singing tremulous
+      hymns; amongst these were Francesco Valori, Ridolfi, and Baccio della
+      Porta, but all armed, as Cronaca tells us. They still sang hymns when the
+      doors were attacked with stones; then leaving the priests and women to
+      pray for them the men rushed to the defence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Old Valori, with a few brave friends, guarded the door; others made
+      loop-holes of the windows and fired out; some went up the campanile, and
+      some on the roof. Baccio fought bravely among the rest. The Palleschi were
+      almost repulsed, but at length succeeded in setting fire to the doors. The
+      church was filled with smoke; a turbulent crowd rushed wildly in.
+      Savonarola saw his people fall dead beside him on the altar steps, and,
+      taking up the Sacrament, he fled to the Greek library, where the
+      messengers of the Signoria came and arrested both himself and Fra
+      Domenico. It was in the fierce fight that ensued when the enemies poured
+      in, laying hands sacrilegiously on every thing sacred, that Baccio made
+      the vow that if he were saved this peril, he would take the habit&mdash;a
+      vow which certainly was not made in a cowardly spirit, he fighting to the
+      death, and then espousing the losing cause. [Footnote: Gino Capponi, lib.
+      vi. chaps. i. and ii., and Padre Marchese, <i>San Marco</i>, p. 147 <i>et
+      seq.</i>]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then came that sad 23rd of May, the eve of the Ascension, when three
+      martyrs went calmly to their death beneath the shadow of the old palace,
+      amidst the insults of an infuriated crowd, and Arno's yellow waters
+      received their ashes. [Footnote: Capponi, chap. ii. p. 253.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001"> IMG--></a>
+    </p>
+
+    <p>
+      After the death of Savonarola the party had many defaulters; but Baccio,
+      the Delia Robbias, Credi, Cronaca, and many other artists, were faithful,
+      and even showed their grief by abandoning for a time the arts they loved.
+      "It almost seemed as if with him they had lost the sacred flame from which
+      their fervid imagination drew life and aliment." [Footnote: Marchese, <i>San
+      Marco</i>, lib. iii. p. 261.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While all these events had been taking place, Baccio had worked as often
+      as his perturbed spirit would allow, at a great fresco of the <i>Last
+      Judgment</i>, in a chapel of the cemetery of S. Maria Nuova. A certain
+      Gerozzi, di Monna Venna Dini, gave him the commission, and as far as he
+      had gone, the painter had given entire satisfaction. This fresco, his
+      first as far as is known, shows Baccio's style as fully as his later ones.
+      We have here his great harmony of form, and intense suggestiveness in
+      composition. The infinity of heaven is emblematised in circles of saints
+      and cherubim around the enthroned Christ. The cross, a link between heaven
+      and earth, is borne by a trinity of angels; S. Michael, as the avenging
+      spirit, stands a powerful figure in the foreground dividing the saved from
+      the lost; the whole composition forming a heavenward cross on an earthly
+      foundation. There are no caves and holes of torture with muscular bodies
+      writhing within them; but in the despairing figures passing away on the
+      right, some with heads bowed on clasped hands, others lifting up faces and
+      arms in a vain cry for mercy, what suggestions there are of infinite
+      remorse!&mdash;more dignified far than the distorted sufferers in the
+      torture pits of previous masters. These are just indicated by two demons,
+      and a subterranean fire behind the unblest souls. Miss Owen, [Footnote: <i>Art
+      Schools of Christendom</i>, edited by Prof. Ruskin.] speaking Mr. Ruskin's
+      sentiments, calls this a great falling off from Giotto and Orcagna's
+      conceptions; but though theirs may be more powerful and terrible, a
+      greater suggestion of Christian religion is here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They, and later, Michelangelo, flung Dante's great struggling soul in
+      tangible forms upon the walls, and embodied his poem, awful, grand, and
+      earnest, with all the human passion intensified into human suffering. Fra
+      Bartolommeo shows the Christian spirit; his faces look beyond the present
+      judgment, and, instead of wrath, mercy is the predominating idea. It is
+      like the difference in spirit between the Old Testament and the New.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The painter's reverence of Fra Angelico, and estimation of the divinity of
+      art, is shown by Fra Angelico being placed among the saints of heaven on
+      the right of the Saviour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonardo's instructions for shading off a light sky will occur to any one
+      who studies the finely gradated tints mingling with the clouds around the
+      celestial group. But grand as the fresco is, and interesting as it must
+      have been to the artist at this time, when thoughts of Savonarola mingled
+      with every stroke, he felt he was not fulfilling his true mission in the
+      world. Drawn more and more to the convent, hallowed to him by the memory
+      of the martyr-friar, he was also more attuned to thoughts of retirement by
+      family bereavements&mdash;one young brother, Piero, only being left to him
+      out of the whole circle. The reluctance to leave this youth alone may have
+      deferred for a time his taking the monastic vows; but having placed him
+      under the guardianship of Santi Pagnini, a Dominican, he consigned the <i>Last
+      Judgment</i> to Mariotto to finish, and leaving his worldly goods to his
+      brother, took the habit in the convent of S. Domenico, at Prato, on July
+      26th, 1500, two years after first making the resolution. His year of
+      probation over, he took the final vows and became Fra Bartolommeo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A document in S. Marco proves that he was possessed of worldly goods when
+      he entered, [Footnote: Rosini, <i>Storia della Pittura</i>, chap xxvii.]
+      among which were the house of his father in S. Pier Gattolini, and the
+      podere at Brozzi. Having once given himself up to monasticism, Fra
+      Bartolommeo would offer no half-service, his brushes were left behind with
+      all other worldly things, and here closes Baccio della Porta's first
+      artistic career.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His sun was set only to rise again to greater brilliance in the future as
+      Fra Bartolommeo, a name famous for ever in the annals of art.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V. FRA BARTOLOMMEO IN THE CONVENT. A.D. 1504-1509.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Four years had passed, and the monk had never touched a pencil, but his
+      mission in art was not fulfilled, and events were working towards that
+      end, for the spirit of art once awakened could not die either in that
+      convent or in that age.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His friend, Mariotto, kept him <i>au courant</i> in all the gossip of art,
+      and told him of the great cartoons of Leonardo and Michelangelo, which he
+      too went to see. They might have inspired him afresh, or perhaps in
+      advising Albertinelli he himself felt impelled to paint, or possibly the
+      visits of Raphael in 1504 influenced him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Padre Marchese takes the conventional view, and says that Santi Pagnini,
+      the oriental scholar and lover of art, came back to S. Marco in 1504 as
+      prior, and used not only his entreaties, but his authority, to induce Fra
+      Bartolommeo to recommence painting. However this may be, it is certain
+      that when Bernardo del Bianco, who had built a beautiful chapel in the
+      Badia from Rovezzano's designs, wished for an altar-piece worthy of its
+      beauty, which he felt no hand could execute so well as that of the Frate&mdash;he
+      yielded to persuasion, and the <i>Vision of S. Bernard</i> was begun. The
+      contract is dated 18th November, 1504; a part payment of sixty florins in
+      gold was made 16th of June, 1507. [Footnote: Padre Marchese, <i>Memorie</i>,
+      iii. vol. ii. p. 594.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This picture, now in the Belle Arti of Florence, is so much injured by
+      re-painting that some parts seem even crude. The saint is on his knees
+      writing, while the vision of the Virgin and Child stands poised in air
+      before him; she inspires his pen, and the infant Christ gives His blessing
+      on the work. There is great spirituality and ecstasy in St. Bernard's
+      face, his white robe contrasts well with two saints behind him, which
+      carry out Fra Bartolommeo's favourite triangular grouping, and with a rich
+      harmony of colour balance his white robe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Virgin is drawn with great nobility and grace, her drapery admirably
+      majestic, yet airy, and a sweet, infantile playfulness renders the Child
+      charming. The angels beneath the Virgin's feet are lovely, but the group
+      of seraphs behind are the least pleasing of all. They are of the earth,
+      earthy, and seem reminiscences of the Florentine maidens the artist met in
+      the streets. Possibly this is the part most injured by the restorer's
+      hand. The colouring of the two saints behind S. Bernard-one in a green
+      robe with bronze-gold shades, and the other blue and orange-is very
+      suggestive of Andrea del Sarto, and seems to render probable Rosini's
+      assertion that the Frate "taught the first steps of this difficult career
+      to that artist who alone was called 'senz' errori.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having once retaken the brush, Fra Bartolommeo recovered his former skill
+      and fame; a beautiful specimen of this period is the <i>Meeting of Christ
+      with the Disciples of Emmaus</i> (1506), a fresco in a lunette over the
+      door of the refectory at S. Marco; in which he combines a richness of
+      colouring rarely obtained in fresco, with a drawing which is almost
+      perfect. Fra Niccolò della Magna, who was prior in that year, and left in
+      1507 to become Archbishop of Capua, sat for one of the saints.
+      Contemporory with this may be dated also the figure of the <i>Virgin</i>,
+      painted for Agnolo Doni, now in the Corsini gallery in Rome. Giovanni de'
+      Medici also gave him a commission.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the <i>S. Bernard</i> was not paid for. Fra Bartolommeo priced
+      it at 200 ducats, and the convent being the gainer by his works, took his
+      own valuation. Bernardo offered only eighty ducats; the Frati were
+      indignant, and called in the Abbot of the Badia as umpire; he being unable
+      to move Bernardo, retired from office; then a council of friends was
+      resolved on, in which Mariotto was for the painter, and Lorenzo de Credi
+      for the purchaser; but this also failed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was next proposed to submit the question to the Guild of Druggists (<i>arte
+      degli speziali</i>), which included at that time also doctors and
+      painters; but the convent, refusing lay judgment, took the offer of
+      Francesco Magalotti, a relative of Bernardo, who priced it at 100 ducats,
+      and the monks had to be satisfied. The dispute ended July 17th, 1507.
+      [Footnote: Rosini, <i>Storia della Pittura</i>, chap, xxvii. p. 245, and
+      Padre Marchese, <i>Memorie</i>, &amp;c., vol. ii. pp. 42 to 45.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All writers agree as to the fact of Fra Bartolommeo's friendship with
+      Raphael, but very few are decided as to its date. Raphael was in Florence
+      in 1504, but then Fra Bartolommeo had not re-commenced painting, and would
+      have no works in the convent to excite his admiration of the colouring.
+      Padre Marchese, following Rosini and Padre Luigi Pungeleoni, asserts that
+      this intimacy was during Raphael's second visit in 1506, when he might
+      have seen the newly-finished fresco of <i>The Disciples at Emmaus</i>. It
+      is undoubted that their intercourse was beneficial to both. Raphael
+      studied anew Leonardo's principles of colour under Fra Bartolommeo's
+      interpretation of them, and the Frate improved his knowledge of
+      perspective and harmony of composition. It is said they worked together at
+      some pictures, of which one is in France, and another at Milan; but there
+      is not sufficient evidence to prove this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is also thought that Fra Bartolommeo helped in the composition of
+      Raphael's famous <i>Madonna del Baldacchino</i>, which is truly very much
+      in his style.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The year 1508 marks the Frate's first acquaintance with the Venetian
+      school, which was not without its influence upon him. Frequent interchange
+      of visits took place between the Dominicans in the different parts of
+      Italy; and Fra Bartolommeo took the opportunity then offered him of going
+      to visit his brethren at Venice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His namesake, Baccio di Monte Lupo, a sculptor who had fled from Florence
+      after the death of Savonarola, and who had fought side by side with Baccio
+      in the siege of S. Mark's church, was in Venice at that time, working on
+      the tomb of Benedetto da Pesaro in the church of the Frati, and he was
+      only too delighted to show the beauties of the Queen of the Adriatic to an
+      artistic mind. Tintoretto was not yet born; Titian was only just rising
+      into fame, though his style had not yet become what it was after
+      Giorgione's influence; but Fra Bartolommeo must have found much that was
+      sympathetic in the exquisite works of Giovanni Bellini and his school, and
+      much to admire in the glorious colouring of Giorgione.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Dalzano, the vicar of the monastery of S. Peter Martyr at Murano,
+      gave the Florentine monk a commission for a picture of the value of
+      seventy or 100 ducats. Not having time to paint this during his stay, he
+      promised to execute it on his return to Florence, and the vicar paid him
+      in advance twenty-eight ducats in money and colours; the rest was to be
+      raised by the sale of some MS. letters from S. Catherine of Siena, which a
+      friend of Father Dalzano near Florence held in possession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fra Bartolommeo, having brought home from the Venetian school a new
+      impulse for painting, and wishing to diffuse the religious influence of
+      art more widely, desired to enlarge his atelier and school at San Marco.
+      His only assistants in the convent were Fra Paolino of Pistoja, and one or
+      two miniaturists, who were only good at missals. Fra Paolino (born 1490)
+      took the vows at a very early age, and was removed to Florence from Prato
+      with Fra Bartolommeo. He was the son of a painter, Bernardino di Antonio,
+      but though he learned the first principles from him, his real art was
+      imbibed from the Frate, under whom, together with Mariotto, he worked for
+      years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this youthful scholar was not enough for Fra Bartolommeo's new
+      energies. He pined for his old friend, Mariotto, who could follow out his
+      designs in his own style so closely, that an unpractised eye could not see
+      the difference of hand; and such was his influence on the rulers of the
+      order, that they allowed a most unique partnership to be entered into.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The parties were, Albertinelli on one side, and the convent and Fra
+      Bartolommeo on the other. The partners to provide the expenses, and the
+      profits to be divided between the convent and Mariotto; the vow of poverty
+      not allowing Fra Bartolommeo as an individual any personal share. This
+      began in 1509 and lasted till 1512. The inventory of the profits and the
+      division made when the partnership was dissolved, given entire by Padre
+      Marchese, [Footnote: Padre Marchese, <i>Memorie</i>, &amp;c., vol. ii.]
+      are very interesting. The two artists had separate monograms to
+      distinguish the pictures which were specially their own, besides which the
+      monk signed his with the touching petition, "<i>orate pro pictore,</i>"
+      his friend merely Latinising his name; the works painted together were
+      signed by the combined monograms. Before setting a hand to anything else,
+      the Frate fulfilled his engagement to the Venetian prior, for whom he
+      painted the <i>Eternal in Heaven</i>, surrounded by saints and angels; but
+      of this we will speak later.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI. ALBERTINELLI IN THE WORLD. A.D. 1501-1510.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      During the interval between the second and third partnership of this
+      incongruous pair of friends, the life of Albertinelli had been very
+      different from that of the Frate. So distressed was he at losing Baccio
+      that he was quite wild for a time. His passions being unruled, that of
+      grief took entire possession of him. In his despair he vowed to give up
+      painting; he declared that he would also become a monk, if it were not
+      that he now hated them more than ever; besides, he was a Pallesco, and
+      could not desert his party.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a time, however, he calmed down, and, looking on his friend's
+      unfinished fresco of the <i>Last Judgment</i> as a legacy from him, began
+      to work at it as a kind of obligation till the occupation wove its own
+      charm, and he steadily devoted himself to art again, much to the
+      satisfaction of good Gerozzi Dini, who was in great perturbation, and
+      declared there was not another hand but his in Florence which could finish
+      it; and also to the relief of Fra Bartolommeo himself, who, having
+      received money on account, was troubled in conscience lest it should
+      remain unfinished. There remained only some figures to put in the
+      terrestrial group, all the celestial portions having been finished by the
+      Frate; but they are very well drawn figures, with a good deal of
+      expression in them. Several are likenesses, amongst whom are Dini and his
+      wife, Bugiardini, the painter's pupil, and himself. Most of these are now
+      destroyed by the effects of damp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mariotto left Fra Bartolommeo's house in S. Pier Gattolini, and took a
+      room in Gualfonda&mdash;now Via Val Fonda&mdash;a street leading towards
+      the fortress, built by the Grand Duke Cosimo on the north of the city; and
+      here in time quite a school grew up under his tuition. Giuliano Bugiardini
+      was his head assistant rather than pupil; Francia Bigio, then a boy,
+      Visino, who afterwards went to Hungary, and Innocenzio da Nicola, besides
+      Piero, Baccio's brother, were all scholars. Albertinelli's Bottega in Val
+      Fonda gave some noble paintings to the world, works independently his own,
+      though Fra Bartolommeo's influence is traceable in most of them. The
+      finest of these is the <i>Salutation</i>, dated 1503&mdash;ordered for the
+      Church of S. Martino, and now the gem of the hall of the Old Masters in
+      the Uffizi Gallery&mdash;a work which alone has been able to mark him for
+      all time as a great master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So simple is the subject, and yet so grand the proportions, and in the
+      figures there is such majesty of maternity and dignity of womanhood! A
+      decorated portico, with the heavens behind it, forms the background to the
+      two noble women, in one of whom is expressed the gracious sympathy of an
+      elder matron with the awful, mysterious joy of the younger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The colouring, perfectly harmonised, is the most masterly blending of a
+      subdued tone with soft yet brilliant and shows a deep study of the method
+      of Leonardo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The predella has an <i>Annunciation</i>, <i>Nativity</i>, and <i>Circumcision</i>;
+      all showing the same able style, but more injured by time than the
+      picture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another charming painting of this period is the <i>Nativity</i> at the
+      Pitti, a round, on panel. The <i>Madonna</i> is not quite so noble as that
+      of the <i>Salutation</i>, but the limbs of the child are beautifully
+      rounded. There is a pretty group of three angels singing in the sky; the
+      landscape is as minute in detail as those his old fellow-pupil Piero used
+      to paint in Cosimo's studio.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1504-5 Fra Bartolommeo called upon him for a deed of friendship, which
+      proves that, whatever biographers (building up theories on a word or two
+      in Vasari) may say of his want of steadiness, the friend who knew him best
+      had supreme trust in him. Santi Pagnini, having been removed to Siena as
+      prior, Fra Bartolommeo made Mariotto guardian and instructor of his young
+      brother Piero, signing a contract that Mariotto was to have the use and
+      management of all estates and possessions of Piero, which included several
+      <i>poderi</i> in the country, as well as the house at the Porta Romana (S.
+      Pier Gattolini). In return Albertinelli was to keep Piero in his house,
+      teach, clothe, and provide for him, not, however, being obliged to give
+      him more than "sette (seven) soldi" a month. Albertinelli was also to have
+      a mass said yearly in the Church of S. Pier Gattolini for the soul of
+      Paolo the muleteer, and to use two pounds of wax candles thereat.
+      [Footnote: Padre Marchese, <i>Memorie</i>, vol. ii. pp. 36, 37.] The
+      contract was signed from 1st January, 1505, and was to last till 1st
+      January, 1511. It appears that this brother Piero was a great trouble to
+      the Frate, being of a bizarre disposition, and addicted to squandering
+      money; he sold some possessions for much less than their worth, [Footnote:
+      Private communication from Sig. G. Milanesi.] which probably accounts for
+      the singular contract of guardianship. He did not show enough talent to
+      become a painter, and took priests' orders later.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About this time Fra Bartolommeo recommenced work, and while he was
+      painting the triptych for Donatello's <i>Madonna</i> (the miniature <i>Nativity</i>
+      and <i>Circumcision</i> in the Uffizi), Albertinelli was at work in the
+      convent of the Certosa, at a <i>Crucifixion</i> in fresco. The painting is
+      extant in the chapterhouse, and is a very fair and unrestored specimen of
+      his best style. The Virgin and Magdalen are very purely conceived figures;
+      the idea of the angels gathering the blood falling from the wounded hands
+      of the crucified Saviour is very tender; there is a great brightness of
+      colouring, and a greenish landscape almost Peruginesque in feeling. Some
+      of his pupils worked with him at the Certosa, and nearly brought their
+      master into trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were not more content with convent fare than was Davide Ghirlandajo,
+      when the only delicacy supplied him at Vallombrosa was cheese; and to
+      revenge themselves, they stole round the cloister after the circular
+      sliding panels by which the rations were sent into the monks' cells were
+      filled, and feasted on the meals made ready for the good brothers. Great
+      confusion ensued in the convent, the monks accusing each other of the
+      theft; but when they found out the real culprits, they made a compromise,
+      promising double rations if the artists would hasten their work and leave
+      them their daily dole in peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fresco is dated 1506. The same year produced the fine picture now in
+      the Louvre, which was painted for the church of S. Trinità on the
+      commission of Zanobio del Maestro.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The <i>Madonna</i>, stands on a pedestal, with S. Jerome and S. Zenobio in
+      front, while episodes from their lives are brought in like distant echoes
+      in the background. [Footnote: S. Zenobio was the first bishop of Florence,
+      and is the patron saint of that city.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The nuns of S. Giuliano employed him to paint two pictures, both of which
+      are now in the Belle Arti. One is an altarpiece; the <i>Madonna enthroned</i>,
+      with the Divine Child in her arms. Era Bartolommeo's idea of an
+      angel-sustained canopy is here, but the angels hold it up from the outside
+      instead of the inside. Before her are S. John the Baptist, S. Julian, S.
+      Nicholas, and S. Dominic. The S. Julian has a great similarity to the S.
+      Michael of Perugino, and the S. John, by its good modelling, shows the
+      result of his studies from the antique in the Medici garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the same church he did the curious conventional painting of the <i>Trinity</i>
+      on a gold ground. The subject is inartistic, because unapproachable; the
+      attempt to paint that which is a deep spiritual mystery degrades both the
+      art and the subject; the latter because it lowers it to human grasp, the
+      former because it shows its powerlessness to shadow forth the infinite.
+      There is beautiful painting in the heads of the angels, at the foot of the
+      Cross, but the brilliancy of the gold ground is overpowering to the
+      colours, albeit he has balanced it by reproducing Cosimo Roselli's
+      red-winged cherubs. Nothing but Fra Angelico's delicate tints can bear
+      such a background. No doubt Piero, Baccio's brother, helped to lay on this
+      gold, for one of the stipulations in the contract with Mariotto was that
+      he was to "metter d' oro ed altre cose di mazoneria" (to put on gold and
+      other articles of emblazonment).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has been a great subject of conjecture at what part of his life
+      Albertinelli took the rash step of throwing up his art and opening a
+      tavern at Porta S. Gallo. Some say it was in his despair at Fra
+      Bartolommeo having taken the vows, but this is disproved by his having at
+      that time finished the <i>Last Judgment</i>, and taken pupils in Val
+      Fonda. Others assert that it was at the breaking up of the last
+      partnership in 1513, but there is no hiatus in his work at that time,
+      existing paintings being dated in 1513 and the following years till his
+      death, three years after.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vasari, though not to be depended on in regard to dates&mdash;chronology
+      not being his forte&mdash;is generally right in the gossip and stories of
+      the lives near his own time, and it is by collateral evidence from his
+      pages that we are able to fix with more certainty 1508 or 1509 as the time
+      of this episode in Albertinelli's life. In 1507 we find him as an artist
+      helping to value his friend's picture, and mediating between the convent
+      and Bernardo del Bianco. [Footnote: Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. iii.
+      chap. xvii. p. 544.] Now, in the 'Life of Andrea del Sarto,' we read that
+      Francia Bigio, Albertinelli's pupil, made the acquaintance of Andrea while
+      studying the Cartoons in the Hall of the Council (this was from 1506 to
+      1508), and as their friendship increased, Andrea confided to Francia Bigio
+      that he could no longer endure the eccentricities of Piero di Cosimo, and
+      determined to seek a home for himself, and that Francia Bigio being also
+      alone&mdash;his master Mariotto Albertinelli <i>having abandoned the art
+      of painting</i>&mdash;they determined to share a studio and rooms.
+      [Footnote: Vasari, vol. iii. p. 182.] The first works the partners
+      undertook were the frescoes of the Scalzo and the Servi, which were begun
+      in 1509. Thus the date is tolerably certain, especially as a gap occurs in
+      Albertinelli's works at this time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sig. Gaetano Milanesi's researches in the Archives have thrown a new light
+      on Mariotto's motives, which were not entirely connected with art; it was
+      not that he was discouraged by adverse criticism, nor wholly that, as time
+      divided him from his friend, he felt he could produce no great work away
+      from his influence, but it was partly that he had married a wife named
+      Antonia, whose father kept an inn at S. Gallo. It is possible the tavern
+      came to him by way of <i>dot</i>, and the above reasons making him
+      discontented with art for a time, might have induced him to carry on the
+      business himself. Sig. Milanesi says a document exists of a contract in
+      which Mariotto's name is connected with a tavern, but that he has never
+      been able to retrace it since the first time he found it. It is his
+      opinion that the whole story arose from the fact of the wife's family
+      possessing this wine shop, and his connection with it in that way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But though Albertinelli passed off his pseudo-hostdom with bravado,
+      talking very wittily about it, the artistic vein was too strong within him
+      to be subdued; he soon gave up the flask and returned to the brush, for in
+      1509, when his quondam pupil, Francia Bigio, was busy at the Servi, we
+      again find Mariotto's hand in a painting of the <i>Madonna</i>. The
+      Virgin, holding a pomegranate in her hand, supports with the other the
+      Child, who stands on a parapet, and clings to the bosom of his mother's
+      dress for support, in a truly natural way; the infant Baptist stands by.
+      The painting, signed, and dated 1509, is in the Fitzwilliam Museum,
+      Cambridge, but has been injured by repainting. In spite of this, Messrs.
+      Crowe and Cavalcaselle believe they perceive Bugiardini's hand in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1510 Albertinelli began one of his masterpieces, the <i>Annunciation</i>
+      for the company of S. Zenobio, now in the Belle Arti. All his zeal for art
+      was reawakened, he flung himself <i>con amore</i> into this work, which,
+      though in oil on panel, was painted on the spot where it was intended to
+      be placed, that the lights might be managed with the best effect. He was
+      imbued with Leonardo da Vinci's principle, that the greatest relief and
+      force are to be combined with softness, and wishing to bring this
+      combination to a perfection which never before had been reached, he
+      depended greatly on the natural light to further his design. [Footnote:
+      Vasari, vol. ii. p. 469.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The picture, although a great work of art, and the most laboured of all
+      his paintings, failed to satisfy the artist. He tried various experiments,
+      painting in and painting out, but never reaching his own ideal. According
+      to Leonardo, he was proving himself a good artist, one of his principles
+      being, "when his (an artist's) knowledge and light surpass his work so
+      that he is not satisfied with himself or his endeavours, it is a happy
+      omen." [Footnote: Leonardo da Vinci, Treatise on Painting.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The work as it stands is a noble one, though darkened by time having
+      brought out the black pigments used in the shades. The background is an
+      intricate piece of architecture with vaulted roof, showing that he too had
+      profited by Raphael's instructions in perspective to Fra Bartolommeo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Virgin is a tender sweet figure; indeed no artist has given more
+      gracious dignity to womanhood than Albertinelli, although his detractors
+      say his life showed no great respect for it. Above, the Almighty is seen
+      in a yellow light with a circle of angels and seraphs around. It is
+      strange how the realistic painters stopped at nothing, not even the
+      representation of the eternal in a human form. Is not this the reason why
+      art ceased about this time to be the interpreter of religion, and found
+      its true mission in being the interpreter of nature? Who can draw one
+      soul? How much more impossible then to depict the incomprehensible soul in
+      which all others have their being? The utmost we can do is to give the
+      indication of the spirit in the expression of a face, and that so
+      imperfectly that not two beholders read it alike. Study Perugino and
+      Raphael, see how they raise human nature and etherealize it till we see
+      the divinity of soul in the faces of their saints and martyrs. But the
+      moment they try to depict the Almighty, or even his angels, they fall at
+      once below humanity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But to return to the <i>Annunciation</i> of Albertinelli. His impetuous
+      temper betrayed him even here; he fell into a dispute with his patrons,
+      who refused to pay the price he asked. The usual "trial by his peers" was
+      resorted to, Perugino, Granacci, and Ridolfo Ghirlandajo were called into
+      council to value it according to its merits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On completing this picture the events we have related in the last chapter
+      took place, Fra Bartolommeo returned from Venice with his enterprise
+      renewed, and the convent partnership was commenced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII. CONVENT PARTNERSHIP. A.D. 1510&mdash;1513.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      We now come to the studio of S. Marco, where the two friends, who had
+      dreamed together as boys, and worked together as youths, now laboured
+      jointly as men, bringing to light some of the finest works of art that
+      remain to us. During these three years Albertinelli's star seems merged in
+      that of his senior, his hand is to be recognised in the lower parts of a
+      few altarpieces; but it is always difficult to distinguish the two styles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a very busy atelier, for they had many patrons. Bugiardini was
+      still Mariotto's head assistant, and Fra Paolino, and one or two other
+      monks, worked under Fra Bartolommeo, besides pupils of both, among whom
+      were Gabriele Rustici and Benedetto Cianfanini.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The studio was on the part of the convent between the cloister and Via del
+      Maglio, [Footnote: Padre Marchese, <i>Memorie</i>, vol. ii. p. 69.] and we
+      can quite picture its interior. There stands the lay figure on which Fra
+      Bartolommeo draped the garments that take such majestic folds in his
+      works; [Footnote: Fra Bartolommeo was the inventor of the jointed lay
+      figure.] there are several casts and models in different parts of the
+      room; grand cartoons in charcoal hang on the walls, like those we see to
+      this day in the Uffizi and Belle Arti. So many of these masterly sketches
+      are the Frate's and so few are Mariotto's that we may presume the former
+      was in most instances the designer. And to what perfection he carried
+      design! Not a figure was drawn except its lines harmonised with the
+      geometric rhythm in the artist's mind. His groups fall by nature into
+      kaleidoscopic figures of circles, triangles, ellipses, crosses, &amp;c.
+      Not a cartoon was sketched in which the lights and shadows were not as
+      gradated and finished as a painting, although they were merely drawn with
+      charcoal. The following was the method of work in the "bottega." The
+      panels were prepared with a coating of plaster of Paris, over which, when
+      dry, a coat of under colour, ground in oil, was passed. The preparing of
+      the panels fell to the work of one of the monk scholars, Fra
+      Andrea.[Footnote: The books of the convent have a note of payment to Fra
+      Bartolommeo for 20th March, 1512, "per parte di lavoro di Fra Andrea
+      converse per mettere d'oro, et ingessare alle tavole nella bottega in
+      diversi lavori" (Padre Marchese, <i>Memorie</i>, lib. ii. chap. in. p.
+      70).] Then the master made his sketch in white, or "sgraffito" (i.e.
+      graven on the plaster), as in the architectural lines of the pictures of
+      patron saints in the Uffizi, and the <i>Marriage of S. Catherine</i> in
+      the Pitti Palace; he also put in the shadows in monochrome. But the
+      assistants, who were skilled artists, were called to put broad level tints
+      of local colour on the buildings, &amp;c., the master himself finishing
+      the faces. No doubt Albertinelli was often deputed to the study of the lay
+      figure and its drapery. Where he assisted, the monogram, a cross with two
+      rings and the joint names, marked the work, as en a panel of 1510 in
+      Vienna, and another at Geneva.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fra Bartolommeo only imitated Leonardo in his intense force and soft
+      gradations; the general thinness of colour is opposed to his system. He
+      followed him, however, in his method of painting his shadows with the
+      brush, instead of "hatching" them; he used the same yellowish ground, and
+      "sfumato," [Footnote: Eastlake's <i>Materials for a History of Oil
+      Painting</i>, vol. ii. chap. iv.] <i>i.e.</i> the imperceptible softening
+      of the transition in half-lights and shadows; it was effected by glazes,
+      and is not adapted to a thin substance. The great mistake in Fra
+      Bartolommeo's system was the preparing his paintings like cartoons, and
+      using asphaltum or lamp-black for outlines and shadows; this in process of
+      time destroys the super-colour, and gives a general blackness to the
+      painting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The same kind of talk went on here as in modern studios. When the
+      frame-maker came, Fra Bartolommeo would be vexed to see how much of his
+      work was hidden beneath the massive cornice, and would vow to dispense
+      with frames altogether, which he did in his <i>S. Sebastian</i> and <i>S.
+      Mark</i>, by painting an architectural niche round the subject like a
+      carving in relief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first work begun at the convent studio was the picture for Father
+      Dalgano of Venice, the subject of which is the <i>Eternal Father in Heaven</i>,
+      surrounded by seraphs and angels. Perhaps in this we have the source of
+      the motive of Albertinelli's <i>Annunciation</i>. The colouring is more
+      brilliant than any of the Frate's works before his visit to Venice. Vasari
+      says that in this picture Giorgione himself could not have surpassed him
+      in brilliancy. The saints, although nearly level with the ground, are
+      given celestial rank by the cherubs and clouds below them. Fra Bartolommeo
+      was dissatisfied with his angels, which seemed merely lovely children, and
+      seeking other forms, he thought to picture them better under shapes which
+      at a distance seem only clouds, but nearer are full of angels' faces, as
+      in the <i>S. Bernard</i>. But this idea, not having aesthetic beauty, was
+      also abandoned. [Footnote: Padre Marchese, <i>I Puristi ed Accademici</i>.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The monks of S. Pietro at Murano did not hasten to claim their picture,
+      but sent two friars to negotiate about the price; they failed to agree,
+      and the work is now in the Church of S. Romano in Lucca.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lucca has another exquisite picture of the same year in the Cathedral of
+      S. Martino, a <i>Madonna and Child</i>&mdash;a lovely ideal of joyful
+      infancy&mdash;beneath a veil suspended above her head by two angels. S.
+      John Baptist and S. Stephen support this airy composition like pillars,
+      their figures showing in strong relief against the dark shades; the whole
+      picture is intensely soft, and yet the outlines are perfectly clear. This
+      is valued at sixty ducats in the Libri di San Marco.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next followed the <i>Virgin and Child with four Saints</i>, in S. Marco,
+      which is so fine that it has been taken for a Raphael, although, owing to
+      the use of lamp-black, it has now become very much darkened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The <i>Holy Family</i> which he painted for Filippo di Averardo Salviati,
+      and which is now in Earl Cowper's collection at Panshanger, is an almost
+      Raphaelesque work, and attains the greatest excellence in art. The
+      composition is his favourite triangle, touched in with the flowing lines
+      of the mother seated on the ground with the two children before her. S.
+      Joseph is in the background. The greatest softness of flesh tints must
+      have been perceptible when new, for, "in spite of the abrasions produced
+      by time, the delicate tones brought out by transparent glazes fused one
+      over another are apparent." The landscape with an echo subject of the
+      flight into Egypt is thought by Crowe and Cavalcaselle to be by
+      Albertinelli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1510 the partners had a large order from Giuliano da Gagliano, who, on
+      the 2nd November, 1510, and 14th January, 1511, paid, in two rates, the
+      sum of 154 ducats. The picture, which is Fra Bartolommeo's own painting,
+      unfortunately cannot be traced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1511 a long list of works are enumerated&mdash;a <i>Nativity</i>,
+      valued two ducats, a <i>Christ bearing the Cross</i>, and an <i>Annunciation</i>,
+      sold to the Gonfaloniere for six ducats&mdash;pictures which are dispersed
+      in England, Pavia, &amp;c.; but the masterpiece of the time is the <i>Marriage
+      of S. Catherine</i>, now in the Louvre. The Florentine government bought
+      it for 300 ducats in 1512, to present to Jacques Hurault, Bishop of Autun,
+      who came to Florence as envoy of Louis XII. He left it to his cathedral at
+      Autun, from whence, at the Revolution, it passed to the Louvre. [Footnote:
+      Padre Marchese, <i>Memorie</i>, lib. iii. ch. iv. p. 77. Crowe and
+      Cavalcaselle, <i>History of Painting</i>, vol. iii. chap. xiii. p. 452.]
+      Before it was sent away, Fra Bartolommeo made a replica of it, which is
+      now in the Pitti Palace. There is his favourite canopy supported by
+      angels; in this case they are beautifully foreshortened. The Virgin is
+      seated on a pedestal, holding by one arm an exquisitely moulded child
+      Jesus of about four years old, who is espousing S. Catherine of Siena,
+      kneeling at His feet on the left. A semicircle of saints group on each
+      side of the Virgin, and two angels, with musical instruments, are at her
+      feet; the upturned face of one is exquisitely foreshortened. The S. George
+      in armour is a powerful figure; and in S. Bartholomew, on the left, is the
+      same grand feeling which he afterwards brought to perfection in S. Mark.
+      The grace of the Virgin's figure is not to be surpassed; if Raphael's
+      Madonnas have more sentiment, this has more dignified grace. He has
+      remembered Leonardo's precept, "that the two figures of a group should not
+      look the same way"; the contrast of the flowing lines in these two forms
+      is very lovely. The same contrast of lines, and yet balance of form, is
+      carried out in the two S. Catherines who form the pyramid on each side of
+      her, and in the varied characters of the encircling group of saints. The
+      deleterious use of lampblack has spoiled the colouring; it, moreover,
+      hangs in a bad light at the Pitti Palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The original subject at the Louvre differs only in a few particulars from
+      this&mdash;the Virgin's hand is on the child's head instead of his arm,
+      and there are trifling differences in the grouping of the saints, the
+      semicircle being more rigidly kept. In this the flesh is thin and
+      uncracked, seeming imbedded in the surrounding colours; the lake draperies
+      are laid so thinly on the light ground, that the sketch can be seen
+      through the colour. [Footnote: Eastlake, <i>Materials for a History of Oil
+      Painting</i>, vol. ii. chap. iv. Crowe and Cavalcaselle speak of the two
+      paintings as unconnected with each other, and mention the Pitti one as
+      having unaccountably returned there after having been given to some
+      bishop. Is it not possible that the gift to a bishop refers to the
+      painting in the Louvre, and that the other is the replica spoken of by
+      Vasari, vol. ii. p. 452?]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a fine painting in the church of S. Caterina of Pisa, in the
+      chapel of the Mastiani family, Michele Mastiani having given the
+      commission, and paid thirty ducats, in October, 1511. It represents the <i>Madonna
+      and Child</i> seated on a base; the action is quiet and yet vivacious; she
+      is supported on each side by S. Peter and S. Paul, figures as large as
+      life, and even more noble than the ones in Rome. The colouring has been
+      much injured by a fire in the seventeenth century, but is robust and
+      harmonious. It is dated 1511.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the 26th of November, 1510, Fra Bartolommeo had a commission from Pier
+      Soderini, then Gonfaloniere, to paint a picture for the Council Hall. This
+      was an unfortunate order; for Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci had both
+      been commissioned, neither of them finishing the works. Fra Bartolommeo's
+      forms the third uncompleted painting; it exists still in the form of a
+      half prepared picture, the design being only shadowed in monochrome, and
+      this in spite of the payment on account of 100 gold ducats in October,
+      1513. [Footnote: See Padre Marchese, <i>Memorie</i>, documenti 5 and 6,
+      vol ii. p. 603.] The reason of this is difficult to assign, but it might
+      lie in the fact that in 1512 Pier Soderini was deposed and exiled by
+      Giuliano de' Medici, who assumed the government. Another reason may have
+      been the failure of Fra Bartolommeo's health after his journey to Rome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1512 Santi Pagnini came back from Siena as prior of S. Marco, and he
+      having no love for Albertinelli, and perhaps a too jealous affection for
+      the artist Monk, caused the partnership to be dissolved, much to
+      Mariotto's sorrow. The stock, of which a full list is given by Padre
+      Marchese, was divided, each taking the pictures in which they had most to
+      do. The properties&mdash;amongst which were the lay figures, easels,
+      casts, sketches, blocks of porphyry to grind colours on, &amp;c.
+      [Footnote: Padre Marchese, vol. ii. pp. 184, 185.]&mdash;were to be left
+      for Fra Bartolommeo's use till his death, when they were to be divided
+      between his heirs and Albertinelli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mariotto returned disheartened to paint in his solitary studio. A specimen
+      of this period is the <i>Adam and Eve</i>, now at Castle Howard, which is
+      said to have been sketched in by Fra Bartolommeo. Eve stands beneath the
+      serpent-entwined tree, hesitating between the demon's temptations and
+      Adam's persuasions; the feeling and action are perfectly expressed, the
+      landscape is minute, but has plenty of atmosphere and good colouring. In
+      the same collection is a <i>Sacrifice of Abraham</i>, in his best style.
+      The drawing of the father, reluctantly holding his knife to the throat of
+      the boy, is extremely true. Munich possesses a fine <i>Annunciation</i>.
+      Characteristic saints support the composition on each side, the nude S.
+      Sebastian being a markworthy study; an angel at his side presents the palm
+      of martyrdom. The picture has suffered much from bad cleaning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In March, 1513, Albertinelli was commissioned by the Medici to paint their
+      arms, in honour of Leo X.'s elevation to the papacy. He made a fine
+      allegorical circular picture, in which the arms were supported by the
+      figures of Faith, Hope, and Charity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII. CLOSE OF LIFE. A.D. 1514&mdash;1517.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It is probable that the dissolution of partnership marked the time of Fra
+      Bartolommeo's visit to Rome. Fra Mariano Fetti, once a lay brother of S.
+      Marco, who had gone over to the Medici after Savonarola's death, and had
+      kept so much in favour with Pope Leo X. as to obtain the office of the
+      Seals (del Piombo), [Footnote: An office for appending seals to papal
+      documents. Fra Mariano Fetti was elected to it in 1514, after Bramante,
+      the architect; Sebastiano del Piombo succeeded him.] was pleased to be
+      considered a patron of art; and welcoming Fra Bartolommeo to Rome, he gave
+      him a commission for two large figures of S. Peter and S. Paul for his
+      church of S. Silvestro. The cartoons of these pictures are now in the
+      Belle Arti of Florence; they are grand and majestic figures, admirably
+      draped. S. Peter holds his keys and a book; S. Paul rests on his sword. In
+      executing them in colour, he made some improvements, especially in the
+      head and hand of S. Peter, but he did not remain long enough in Rome to
+      finish them. "The colour of the first (S. Peter) is reddish and rather
+      opaque, the shadows of the head being taken up afresh, and the extremities
+      being by another painter. The head of the second (S. Paul) is corrected
+      ... but the tone is transparent, and the execution exclusively that of Fra
+      Bartolommeo. Whoever may have been employed on the S. Peter, we do not
+      fancy Raphael to have been that person." This is the opinion of Crowe and
+      Cavalcaselle, [Footnote: <i>History of Painting</i>, vol. iii. chap. xiii.
+      p. 460.] who, however, seem to have little faith in any works of the Frate
+      at Rome. Against this we have the chronicles of quaint old Vasari and
+      Rosini; besides Baldinucci (ch. iv. p. 83), who says, "Raphael gave great
+      testimony of his esteem when, in after years, he employed his own brush in
+      Rome to finish a work begun by Fra Bartolommeo in that city and left
+      imperfect."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His reason for leaving it imperfect was that of ill-health, the air of
+      Rome not agreeing with him. It seems he brought home <i>malaria</i>, which
+      never entirely left his system, the low fever returning every year, and
+      being only mitigated by a change to mountain air. He was well enough at
+      times to resume painting, but never in full health again. That very summer
+      he was sent to the Hospice of Sta. Maria Maddalena in Pian di Mugnone,
+      "dove pure non stette in ozio," [Footnote: Rosini, <i>Storia della Pittura</i>,
+      chap, xxvii. p. 245.] where he did not remain idle. The Hospice stands on
+      a high hill, just the place for Roman fever to disappear as if by magic
+      for a time, and the patient, relieved of his lassitude, set to work with
+      energy, aided by Fra Paolino and Fra Agostino. Many of his frescoes still
+      remain, one of which is a beautiful <i>Madonna</i>, on the wall of the
+      infirmary, which has since been sawn away from the wall and placed in the
+      students' chapel in San Marco, Florence. [Footnote: A document of the
+      Hospice records these paintings, and dates them 10th of July, 1514. Padre
+      Marchese, <i>Memorie</i>, &amp;c., vol. ii. p. 610.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He returned to Florence for the winter, and with renewed vigour produced
+      his <i>San Sebastian</i>, a splendid study from the nude, which shows the
+      influence upon him of Michelangelo's paintings in Rome. The picture was
+      hung in San Marco, but its influence not proving elevating to the sensuous
+      minds of the Florentines, it was removed to the chapter-house, and Gio
+      Battista della Palla, the dealer who bought so many of the best pictures
+      of the time, purchased it to send to the King of France. Its subsequent
+      fate is not known, although Monsieur Alaffre, of Toulouse, boasts of its
+      possession. He says his father bought three paintings which, in the time
+      of the Revolution, had been taken from the chapel of a royal villa near
+      Paris [Footnote: Padre Marchese, <i>Memorie</i>, &amp;c., vol. ii. note p.
+      119.], one of which is the <i>S. Sebastian</i>. In design and attitude it
+      corresponds to the one described by Vasari, the saint being in a niche,
+      surrounded by a double cornice. The left arm is bound; the right, with its
+      cord hanging, is upraised in attitude of the faith, so fully expressed in
+      the beautiful face. Three arrows are fixed in the body, which is nude
+      except a slight veil across the loins; an angel, also nude, holds the palm
+      to him. Connoisseurs do not think this painting equal in merit to the
+      other works of Fra Bartolommeo. It is true it may have been overrated at
+      the time, for the Frate's chief excellence lay in the grandeur of his
+      drapery; the test of authenticity for a nude study from him would lie more
+      in the colouring and handling than in form.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the early part of 1515 Fra Bartolommeo went to pay his old friend Santi
+      Pagnini, the Oriental scholar, a visit at the convent of San Romano, in
+      Lucca, of which he was now prior, passing by Pistoja on February 17th to
+      sign a contract for an altar-piece to be placed in the church of San
+      Domenico&mdash;a commission from Messer Jacopo Panciatichi. The price was
+      fixed at 100 gold ducats, and the subject to be the Madonna and Child,
+      with SS. Paul, John Baptist, and Sebastian. On his arrival at Lucca he was
+      soon busy with his great work, the <i>Madonna della Misericordia</i>, for
+      the church of San Romano. The composition of this is full and harmonious.
+      A populace of all ages and conditions, grouped around the throne of the
+      Madonna, beg her prayers; she, standing up, seems to gather all their
+      supplications in her hands and offer them up to heaven, from which, as a
+      vision, Christ appears from a mass of clouds in act of benediction.
+      Amongst the crowd of supplicants are some exquisite groups. Sublime
+      inspiration and powerful expression are shown in the whole work. On his
+      return he stayed again at Pistoja, where he painted a fresco of a <i>Madonna</i>
+      on a wall of the convent of San Domenico; this, which has since been sawn
+      from the wall, is at present in the church of the same convent, and though
+      much injured, is a very light and tender bit of colouring and expression.
+      It would seem that the altar-piece for the same church, spoken of above,
+      was never finished, as no traces of it are to be found.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In October, 1515, we again find him at Pian di Mugnone; no doubt the
+      summer heats had induced a return of his fever. Here, again improving in
+      health, he painted a charming <i>Annunciation</i> in fresco, full of life
+      and eagerness on the part of the angel, and joy on the Virgin. He did not
+      remain long, for before the end of the autumn he returned to visit the
+      home of his youth and see his paternal uncle, Giusto, at Lastruccio, near
+      Prato. We can imagine the meeting between him and his relatives, and how
+      the little Paolo, son of Vito, being told to guess who he was, said, "Bis
+      Zio Bartolommeo," [Footnote: Padre Marchese, <i>Memorie</i>, &amp;c., vol.
+      ii. chap. vii. pp. 139, 140.] for which he was much applauded. And when
+      all the country relatives hoped to see him again soon, how the Frate said
+      that would be uncertain, because the King of France had sent for him, and
+      with what awe and family pride they would have looked at him! But instead
+      of going to France for the glory of art, he was returning to Florence to
+      sorrow. His life-long friend, Mariotto Albertinelli, had been brought home
+      on a litter from La Quercia, near Viterbo, and now lay on his death-bed;
+      and what his life had lacked in religion, the prayers of his friend would
+      go far to atone for at his death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Fra Bartolommeo had been ailing, Albertinelli had also paid his
+      visit to the great city, and seen the two great rivals there. He went from
+      Viterbo, where he had been to finish colouring a work of the Frate's left
+      unfinished, and also to paint some frescoes in the convent of La Quercia,
+      near that town. Being so near Borne, he was seized with a great desire to
+      see it, and left his picture for that purpose. Probably Fra Bartolommeo
+      had given him an introduction to his friend and patron, for Fra Mariano
+      Fetti gave Albertinelli a commission to paint a <i>Marriage of S.
+      Catherine</i> for his church, which he completed, and then left Rome at
+      once. Nothing is known of the impressions made on him by the works of the
+      two great masters, and unfortunately his death occurred too soon after for
+      his own style to have given any evidence of their influence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A Giostra, at Viterbo, proved a very strong attraction to his
+      pleasure-loving mind. This "Giostra," which the translators of Vasari seem
+      to find so "obscure," [Footnote: Vasari's <i>Lives</i>, vol. ii. p. 470.]
+      was no doubt one of those festivals revived by the Medici, in which
+      mounted cavaliers ride with a lance at a suspended Saracen's head,
+      striking it at full gallop. Desirous of appearing to advantage before the
+      eyes of her whom he had elected his queen, he forgot his mature age, and
+      rushed into the jousts with all the energies of a youth, but alas! fell
+      ill from over-exertion. Fearing the malarious air was not good for him, he
+      had a litter made, and was taken to Florence, where Fra Bartolommeo placed
+      himself at his bedside, soothing his last moments, and leading him as far
+      heavenward as he could. When Albertinelli died, on the 5th of November,
+      1515, his friend followed him to an honourable interment in S. Piero
+      Maggiore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After Albertinelli's death, the Frate soared to greater heights of genius
+      than before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The year 1516 marks the birth of his grandest masterpieces, first the
+      picture in the Pitti Palace called by Cavalcaselle a <i>Resurrection</i>,
+      but which is more truly an allegorical impersonation of the Saviour. It
+      was ordered by a rich merchant, Salvadore Billi, to place in a chapel
+      which Pietro Roselli had adorned with marbles in the church of the
+      "Annunciata." He paid 100 ducats in gold for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In its original state the picture was a complete allegory of <i>Christ as
+      the centre of Religion</i>, between two prophets in heaven, and four
+      apostles, two at each side&mdash;beneath him two angels support the world.
+      The prophets have been removed, and are placed in the Tribune of the
+      Uffizi; thus the picture as it stands loses half its meaning. The Christ
+      is a fine nude figure standing in a niche, and in it Fra Bartolommeo has
+      solved the problem of obtaining complete relief almost in monochrome, so
+      little do the lights of the flesh tints, and the warm yellowish tinge of
+      the background differ from each other. All the positive colour is in the
+      drapery of the saints, one in red and green, and another in red and blue.
+      The two angels are exquisitely drawn, and contrast well in their natural
+      innocence with the sentimental pair in Raphael's <i>Madonna of the
+      Baldacchino</i> on the same wall of the Pitti Palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      San Marco was rich in frescoes of the <i>Madonna and Child</i>, two of
+      which are still in the chapel of the convent, and two in the Belle Arti.
+      Some of these are charming in expression, the children clinging round the
+      mother's neck in a true childish <i>abandon</i> of affection. What a
+      tender feeling these monk artists had for the spirit of maternity! Perhaps
+      by being debarred from the contemplation of maternal love in its humanity,
+      they more clearly comprehended its divinity. Look at the little
+      round-backed nestling child in Fra Angelico's <i>Madonna della Stella</i>,
+      imperfect as it is in form, the whole spirit of love is in it. He does not
+      give only the mother-love for the child, but the child-love for the
+      mother, which is more divine, and the same feeling is seen in the <i>Madonna</i>
+      of Fra Bartolommeo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This year, 1516, also marks a journey to a hermitage of his order at
+      Lecceto, between Florence and Pisa. Here he painted a <i>Deposition from
+      the Cross</i> on the wall of the Hospice, and two heads of Christ on two
+      tiles above the doors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A great many of his works are in private collections in Florence; one of
+      the most lovely is the <i>Pietà</i>, painted for Agnolo Doni, and now in
+      the Corsini Gallery at Rome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this time the great painting of the <i>Enthronement of the Virgin</i>,
+      ordered by Pier Soderini, before his exile, was still unfinished. He seems
+      to have taken it in hand again about this time, but being attacked with
+      another access of fever, again left it, and the painting, shadowed in with
+      black, remains in the Uffizi. Lanzi writes of it that, imperfect as it is,
+      it may be regarded as a true lesson in art, and bears the same relation to
+      painting as the clay model to the finished statue, the genius of the
+      inventor being impressed upon it. Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle
+      [Footnote: <i>History of Painting</i>, vol. iii. chap. xiii. p. 455.] call
+      this a <i>Conception</i>, but Vasari's old name of the <i>Patron Saints of
+      Florence</i> seems to fit it best. S. John the Baptist, S. Reparata, S.
+      Zenobio, &amp;c., stand in an adoring group around the heavenly powers, S.
+      Anna above the Virgin and infant Christ forming a charming pyramidal group
+      in the midst. The whole thing is one of Fra Bartolommeo's richest
+      compositions. The centre of the three monks on the left is said to be a
+      portrait of Fra Bartolommeo himself, and to be the original from which the
+      only known portrait of him is taken (<i>see Frontispiece</i>). Fra
+      Bartolommeo left another work also unfinished, an apotheosis of a saint,
+      which is now at Panshanger. This is supposed to have been a small ideal
+      prepared for a picture to celebrate the canonisation of S. Antonino, which
+      Leo X. had almost promised the brethren of S. Marco on his triumphant
+      entry in 1515. The work, if it had been painted in the larger form, would
+      have been a perfect masterpiece of composition, "a very Beethoven symphony
+      in colour," if we may judge from the sketch at Panshanger, where a living
+      crowd groups round the bier of the archbishop, and life, earnestness,
+      harmony, and richness, are all intense.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So ill was Fra Bartolommeo in 1517 that he was ordered to take the baths
+      at San Filippo, thence he went for the last time to Pian di Mugnone, where
+      he painted a <i>Vision of the Saviour to Mary Magdalen</i>, above the door
+      of the chapel. The two figures, nearly life-size, are at the door of the
+      cave sepulchre. Mary has just recognised her Lord, and in her ecstasy
+      flings herself forward on her knees before him. The Saviour is a dignified
+      figure semi-nude, with a white veil wrapped around him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the Pitti Palace, a charming <i>Pietà</i> of Fra Bartolommeo's occupies
+      a place near the <i>Pietà</i> of Andrea del Sarto, the two pictures
+      forming a most interesting contrast of style. The kneeling Virgin and S.
+      John support the head of the prostrate Saviour, S. Catherine and Mary
+      Magdalen weep at his feet, the latter in an agony of grief crouches prone
+      on the ground hiding her face. The colouring is extremely rich, broad
+      masses of full-tone melting softly into deep shadows. The handling in the
+      flesh-tones of the dead Saviour, as well as the modelling of form, are
+      most masterly. It is generally supposed that this was the picture which
+      Bugiardini is said to have coloured after the master's death; but there is
+      much divergence among Italian authors both as to whether this was the
+      painting spoken of, and also as to the meaning of Vasari's words, he using
+      the phrase "finished" in one place, and "coloured" in another. For charm
+      of colouring and depth of expression, the <i>Pietà</i> is the most lovely
+      of all the Frate's works; therefore Bugiardini who was <i>mediocre</i>,
+      could not have outdone his great master. It was not <i>coloured</i> by
+      him. Bocchi [Footnote: Bocchi, <i>Bellezze di Firenze</i>, p. 304.] says
+      there were two other figures, S. Peter and S. Paul, in the picture, where
+      a meaningless black shadow stretches across the background; but they were
+      erased by the antique restorer because they were "troppo deboli." Is it
+      not likely that if Bugiardini had any hand in the work, it was to finish
+      these figures?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Returning in the autumn to Florence, Fra Bartolommeo caught a severe cold,
+      the effects of which were heightened by eating fruit, and after four days'
+      extreme illness he died on October 8th, 1517, aged 42.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The monks felt his death intensely, and buried him with great honour in
+      San Marco.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He left to art the most valuable legacy possible&mdash;a long list of
+      masterpieces in which religious feeling is expressed in the very highest
+      language. In all his works there is not a line or tint which transgresses
+      against either the sentiment of devotion, or the rules of art. He stands
+      for ever, almost on a level with the great trio of the culmination,
+      "possessing Leonardo's grace of colour and more than his industry,
+      Michelangelo's force with more softness, and Raphael's sentiment with more
+      devotion;" yet with just the inexpressible want of that supernatural
+      genius which would have placed him above them all. His legacy to the world
+      is a series of lessons from the very first setting of his ideal on paper
+      to its finished development. The germ exists in the charcoal sketches at
+      the Belle Arti and Uffizi; the under-shadowing of the subject is seen in
+      the <i>Patron Saints</i> at the Uffizi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many of his drawings are not to be traced. Some were used by Fra Paolino,
+      his pupil, who at his death passed them to Suor Plautilla Nelli, a nun in
+      Sta. Caterina, Florence (born 1523, died 1587). When Baldinucci wrote his
+      work, he said 500 of these were in the possession of Cavaliere Gaburri.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PART" id="link2H_PART"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PART I. SCHOLARS OF FRA BARTOLOMMEO.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Of these, little more than the names have come down to us. Vasari speaks
+      of Benedetto Cianfanini, Gabbriele Rustici, and Fra Paolo Pistojese; Padre
+      Marchese mentions two monks, Fra Andrea and Fra Agostino. Of these, the
+      two first never became proficient, and have left no works behind them. Fra
+      Andrea seems to have been more a journeyman than scholar, being employed
+      to prepare the panels and lay on the gilding. Fra Agostino assisted his
+      master, and Fra Paolo in the subordinate parts of a few frescoes,
+      especially at Luco in the Mugnone. Fra Paolo is the most known, but
+      chiefly as a far-off imitator of Fra Bartolommeo, without his mellowness
+      of execution. His pictures are mostly from his master's designs, which
+      were left him as a legacy, and this ensures a good composition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was born at Pistoja in 1490; his father, Bernardino d' Antonio del
+      Signoraccio, a second-rate artist, taught him the first principles of art.
+      His knowledge of drawing caused him to be noticed by Fra Bartolommeo, when
+      at a very early age he entered the order. He was removed from Prato to San
+      Marco, Florence, in 1503; and here he found another friend who assisted
+      his artistic tendencies. This was Fra Ambrogio della Robbia, [Footnote:
+      Padre Marchese, Memorie, &amp;c., lib. in. chap. ii. p. 246.] who taught
+      him to model in clay; a specimen of his work exists in the Church of Sta.
+      Maddalena in Pian di Mugnone, where are two statues of S. Domenico and
+      Mary Magdalen by his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His best work is a <i>Crucifixion</i> at Siena, dated 1516, which has been
+      thought to be Fra Bartolommeo's; but though that master was asked to go
+      and paint it as a memorial of a certain Messer Cherubino Ridolfo, his many
+      occupations prevented his accepting the commission, and his disciples, Fra
+      Paolo and Fra Agostino, went in his place. [Footnote: Padre Marchese,
+      Memorie, &amp;c., lib. in. chap. ii. p. 251.] Possibly the master supplied
+      the design, which is very harmonious. The Virgin and S. John stand on each
+      side of the cross, and Saint Catherine of Siena and Mary Magdalen are
+      prostrate before it. One or two of the female saints are pleasing, but the
+      nude figure of Christ is hard, exaggerated, and faulty in drawing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The artists got thirty-five lire for the work, though the record in the
+      archives allows that it was worth more. There is an <i>Assumption</i> in
+      the Belle Arti of Florence, of which the design is Fra Bartolommeo's, but
+      the colouring Fra Paolo's. It was painted for the Dominican monks at Santa
+      Maria del Sasso, near Bibbiena. The colouring is hard and weak, the
+      shadows heavy, and not fused well in the half tints. Two monks on the left
+      are tolerably life-like, probably they were drawn from living models; the
+      S. Catherine on the right is very inferior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Belle Arti also possesses a <i>Deposition from the Cross</i>, which
+      Fra Bartolommeo had sketched out and left uncoloured at Pian di Mugnone.
+      In 1519 Fra Paolo finished it, and it presents the usual disparity between
+      the composition and colouring, the former being good, the latter weak and
+      crude. His best known works are a Nativity in the Palazzo Borghese, a <i>Madonna
+      and Child with S. John Baptist</i> in the Sciarra Colonna, also in Rome; a
+      <i>Madonna and Child with S. John</i> in the Corsini Gallery, Florence,
+      and another of the same subject in the Antinori Palace. He painted also at
+      San Gimignano, Pian di Mugnone, and Pistoja, and died of sunstroke in
+      1547.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had as a follower a Suor Plautilla Nelli, born 1523, daughter of a
+      noble Florentine, Piero di Luca Nelli. She took the vows at the age of
+      fourteen, in the convent of S. Caterina di Siena, in Via Larga (now
+      Cavour), Florence. Her sister, Suor Petronilla, in the same convent, was a
+      writer, and her life of Savonarola is still extant. Suor Plautilla taught
+      herself to paint. Legend says, that in order to study the nude for a
+      Christ, she drew from the corpse of a nun&mdash;which might account for
+      the weak stiffness of her design. Fra Paolo, though there is no record of
+      his having taught her, left her as a legacy the designs and cartoons of
+      Fra Bartolommeo, one of which, the <i>Pietà</i>, she has evidently made
+      use of in the painting in the Belle Arti. The grouping is that of the <i>Pietà</i>
+      of Fra Bartolommeo, now in the Pitti, of which she must have had the
+      original sketch, for she has put in the two saints in the background,
+      which have been painted out in that of the Frate, but we will give her the
+      entire credit of the colouring, which is extremely crude; the contrasting
+      blues and yellows are in inharmonious tones, the shading harsh, and the
+      whole picture wanting in chiaroscuro. The Corsini Gallery, Florence, has a
+      <i>Virgin and Child</i> by her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PART2" id="link2H_PART2"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PART II. SCHOLARS OF MARIOTTO ALBERTINELLI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The scholars of Mariotto Albertinelli were much more important in the
+      annals of art, the principal ones being Bugiardini, Francia Bigio, Visino,
+      and Innocenza d' Imola.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Giuliano Bugiardini should be called the assistant rather than the scholar
+      of Albertinelli, being older than his master. He was born in 1471 in a
+      suburb outside the Via Faenza, Florence, and was placed in the shop of
+      Domenico Ghirlandajo, where his acquaintance with Michelangelo&mdash;begun
+      in the Medici Gardens&mdash;ripened into intimacy, and he was employed by
+      him in the Sistine Chapel. Giuliano had that happily constructed mind
+      which, with an ineffable content in its own works, will pass through life
+      perfectly happy in the feeling that in reaching mediocrity it has achieved
+      success. Not only wanting talent to produce better works, he lacked also
+      the faculty of perceiving where his own were faulty, and having a great
+      aptitude for copying the works of others, he felt himself as great as the
+      original artists. Michelangelo was always amused with his naïve
+      self-conceit, and kept up a friendship with him for many years. He even
+      went so far as to sit to Bugiardini for his likeness, at the request of
+      Ottaviano de' Medici. Giuliano, having painted and talked nonsense for two
+      hours, at last exclaimed, to his sitter's great relief, "Now,
+      Michelangelo, come and look at yourself; I have caught your very
+      expression." But what was Michelangelo's horror to see himself depicted
+      with eyes which were neither straight nor a pair! The worthy artist looked
+      from his work to the original, and declared he could see no difference
+      between them, on which Michelangelo, shrugging his shoulders, said, "It
+      must be a defect of nature," and bade his friend go on with it. This
+      charming portrait was presented to Ottaviano de' Medici, with that of <i>Pope
+      Clement VII.</i>, copied from Sebastian del Piombo, and is now in the
+      Louvre. Bugiardini's works always take the style of other masters. There
+      is a <i>Madonna</i> in the Uffizi, and one in the Leipsic Museum, both in
+      Leonardo's style, with his defects exaggerated. The former is a sickly
+      woman in a sentimental attitude, the child rather heavy, the colouring is
+      bright and well fused; he has evidently adopted the method which he had
+      seen Albertinelli use in his studio.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During a stay in Bologna he painted a <i>Madonna and Saints</i> as an
+      altar-piece for the church of S. Francesco, besides a <i>Marriage of S.
+      Catherine</i>, now in the Bologna Pinacoteca. The composition of this is
+      not without merit; the child Jesus seated on his mother's knees, gives the
+      ring to S. Catherine, little S. John stands at the Virgin's feet, S.
+      Anthony on her left. The colouring is less pleasing, the flesh tints too
+      red and raw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A round picture in the Zambeccari Gallery, Bologna, shows him in
+      Michelangelo's style. The Virgin is reading on a wooded bank, but looks up
+      to see the infant Christ greet the approaching S. John Baptist; this is
+      carefully, if rather hardly, painted. The lights in the Saviour's hair
+      have been touched in with gold. The time of his stay in Bologna is
+      uncertain, but in 1525 he was in Florence, and drawing designs for the
+      Ringhiera with Andrea del Sarto. There is a document in the archives,
+      proving that on October 5th, 1526 Bugiardini was paid twenty florins in
+      gold for his share of the work. He obtained some rank as a portrait
+      painter, in spite of his failure in that of Michelangelo; and had
+      commissions from many of the celebrities of Florence. It was in original
+      composition that his powers failed him. Messer Palla Rucellai ordered a
+      picture from him of the <i>Martyrdom of S. Catherine</i>, which he began
+      with the intention of making it a very fine work indeed. He spent several
+      years in representing the wheels, the lightnings and fires in a
+      sufficiently terrible aspect, but had to beg Michelangelo's assistance in
+      drawing the men who were to be killed by those heavenly flames; his design
+      was to have a row of soldiers in the foreground, all knocked down in
+      different attitudes. His friend took up the charcoal and sketched in a
+      splendid group of agonised nude figures; but these were beyond his power
+      to shade and colour, and Tribolo made him a set of models in clay, in the
+      attitudes given by Michelangelo, and from these he finished the work; but
+      the great master's hand was never apparent in it. Bugiardini died at the
+      age of seventy-five.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of Francesco Bigi, commonly called Francia Bigio or Franciabigio, so much
+      is said in the following life of Andrea del Sarto, that a slight sketch
+      will suffice here. He was the son of Cristofano, and was born in 1482. His
+      early studies were made in the Brancacci Chapel, and the Papal Hall&mdash;where
+      he drew from the cartoons in 1505-6, and the studio of Mariotto
+      Albertinelli, from which he passed to his partnership with Andrea del
+      Sarto in 1509. Thus it is that his first style was marked by the influence
+      of Mariotto and Fra Bartolommeo, while in his later works he approximated
+      more to Andrea del Sarto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two of his early paintings were placed in the church of S. Piero Maggiore,
+      one a <i>Virgin and Child</i> of great beauty. The infant clasps its arms
+      round its mother's neck&mdash;a charming attitude&mdash;which suggests a
+      playful effort to hide from the young S. John, who is running towards him,
+      by nestling closer to the dearer resting place. The picture is now in the
+      Uffizi and has been long known as <i>Raphael's Madonna del Pozzo</i>.
+      [Footnote: Crowe and Cavalcaselle, <i>History of Painting</i>, vol. iii.
+      chap. xv. p. 501.] No greater testimony to Francia Bigio's excellence can
+      be given than the frequency of his works being mistaken for those of
+      Raphael, but the influence of his contemporaries was always strong upon
+      him. The <i>Annunciation</i>, painted for the same church, is also
+      described by Vasari as a carefully designed work, though somewhat feeble
+      in manner. The angel is lightly poised in air, the Virgin kneeling before
+      a foreshortened building. The picture was lost sight of in the demolition
+      of the church, but Crowe and Cavalcaselle [Footnote: Crowe and
+      Cavalcaselle, <i>History of Painting</i>, Vol. iii. p. 500.] believe they
+      have discovered it in a picture at Turin, the authorship of which is
+      avowedly doubtful. They mention, however, a celestial group of the Eternal
+      Father in a cherub-peopled cloud, sending his blessing in the form of a
+      dove, with a ray of glory. Surely if this be the one described by Vasari
+      [Footnote: Vasari, vol. iii. p. 336] so minutely, he would not have
+      omitted a part of the subject so important to the picture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1509 we may presumably date the partnership with Andrea del Sarto, that
+      being about the time when they began to work together in the Scalzo.
+      Francia Bigio painted some frescoes in the church of S. Giobbe, behind the
+      Servite Monastery. A <i>Visitation</i> was in a tabernacle at the corner
+      of the church, and subjects from Job's life on a pilaster within it: these
+      have long ago disappeared. The altar-piece of the <i>Madonna and Job</i>,
+      which he painted in oil for the same church, has been more fortunate, as
+      it still exists in the Tuscan School in the Uffizi. Though much injured,
+      it shows his earlier style. The <i>Calumny of Apelles</i> in the same
+      gallery is a curious picture. It is hard and dull in colouring, the
+      prevailing tone being a heavy drab; there are several nude figures, of
+      doubtful forms as to beauty of drawing, the flesh is painted in a smooth
+      glazed style, without relief or tenderness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Francia Bigio shines more in fresco than in oil; his hardness is less
+      apparent, and he gains in freedom and brilliance of colouring in the more
+      congenial medium. The finest of his frescoes is, unfortunately, spoiled by
+      his own hand, and remains as a memorial of his genius and hasty temper. I
+      allude to the <i>Sposalizio</i> (A.D. 1513) in the courtyard of the
+      Servite church, where Andrea did his series of frescoes from the life of
+      Filippo Benizzi. The composition is grand and carefully thought out, the
+      colouring bright and pleasing; perhaps in emulating Andrea's luxurious
+      style of drapery he has gone a little too far, and crowded the folds. The
+      bridegroom is a noble figure, and shows in his face his gladness in the
+      blossoming rod. A man in the foreground breaks a stick across his knees.
+      The commentators of Vasari have taken this to emblematize the Roman
+      Catholic legend of the Virgin having given rods to each of her suitors,
+      and chosen him whose rod blossomed. Graceful women surround the Virgin,
+      but there is perhaps a too marked sentimentality about these which
+      suggests a striving after Raphael's style. There is, however, a great
+      touch of nature in a mother with a naughty child, who sits crying on the
+      ground, much to the mother's distress. Francia Bigio commenced this in
+      Andrea's absence in France, which so excited his former comrade's
+      emulation that he did his <i>Visitation</i> in great haste, to get it
+      uncovered as soon as Francia Bigio's. In fact, Andrea's works were ready
+      by the date of the annual festa of the Servites, and the monks, being
+      anxious to uncover all the new frescoes for that day, took upon them to
+      remove the mattings from that of Francia Bigio as well, without his
+      permission, for he wished to give a few more finishing touches. So angry
+      was he, on arriving in the cloister, to see a crowd of people admiring his
+      work in what he felt to be an imperfect condition, that in an excess of
+      rage he mounted on the scaffolding which still remained, and, seizing a
+      hammer, beat the head of the Madonna to pieces, and ruined the nude figure
+      breaking the rod. The monks hastened to the scene in an uproar of
+      remonstrance, the frantic artist's destructive hand was stayed by the
+      bystanders, but so deep was his displeasure that he refused to restore the
+      picture, and no other hand having touched it, the fresco remains to this
+      day a fine work mutilated. It shows him artistically in his very best, and
+      morally, at his worst, phase. In 1518, while Andrea was in France, the
+      monks of the Scalzo employed Francia Bigio to fill two compartments in
+      their pretty little cloister, where Andrea had commenced his <i>Life of S.
+      John Baptist</i>. These are spoken of more at length in the life of that
+      master, who on his return took the work again in his own hands. In 1521
+      Bigio competed with Andrea and Pontormo, in the Medici Villa at Poggio a
+      Cajano; Andrea's <i>Cæsar receiving Tribute</i> occupies one wall of the
+      hall, and Francia Bigio's <i>Triumph of Cicero</i> another. The subjects
+      were selected by the historian, Messer Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera; it
+      only remained for the artists to make the most of the chosen themes.
+      Francia Bigio filled his background with a careful architectural
+      perspective, and a crowd of muscular Romans are grouped before it. This
+      also was left unfinished at the Pope's death, and Allori completed it in
+      1582. Francia Bigio, however, did many of the gilded decorations of the
+      hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the Dresden Gallery is a work, Scenes from the Life of David, signed A.
+      S., MDXXIII., and his monogram, a painting very much in the style of
+      Andrea del Sarto's <i>Life of Joseph</i>. Reumont [Footnote: Life of
+      Andrea del Sarto, p. 138 et seq.] claims it as the joint work of Andrea
+      and Francia Bigio, founding his opinion on the letters A. S. before the
+      date; but the letters mean only <i>Anno salutis</i>, and are used in very
+      many of Francia Bigio's signed paintings. He had the commission from Gio
+      Maria Benintendi in 1523. It is one of those curious pictures which have
+      many scenes in one&mdash;a style which militates greatly against artistic
+      unity. On the right is David's palace, on the left Uriah's; David is at
+      his door watching Bathsheba and her maidens bathing. In the centre is the
+      siege of Rabbah; another well-draped group represents David receiving
+      Uriah's homage. In the foreground David gives wine to Uriah at a banquet.
+      There is careful painting and ingenious composition, but a less finished
+      manner of colouring than in Andrea's Joseph, which was painted about the
+      same time for Pier Borgherini.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, Francia Bigio fell off in his later style,
+      partly because his ambition failed him, and also because he began to look
+      on art as a means of livelihood&mdash;a motive which is certain death to
+      high art.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was especially celebrated as a portrait painter, several of his works
+      having been attributed to Raphael. Among these are one at the Louvre and
+      one at the Pitti Palace, both portraits of a youth in tunic and black cap,
+      with long hair flowing over his shoulders; one in the National Gallery,
+      formerly in Mr. Fuller Maitland's collection; the portrait of a jeweller,
+      dated A. S., MDXVI. in Lord Yarborough's gallery; that in the Berlin
+      Museum, of a man sitting at a desk, dated 1522; and the likeness of Pier
+      Francesco de Medici at Windsor&mdash;all of which bear Francia Bigio's
+      monogram, often with the letters A. S. (<i>Anno salutis</i>) before the
+      date. He died on January 14th, 1525.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X. RIDOLFO GHIRLANDAJO. A.D. 1483&mdash;1560.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      RIDOLFO (DI DOMENICO) BIGORDI, called GHIRLANDAJO, &amp;c., was born on
+      the 4th of January, 1483. Although not strictly a scholar, he is one of
+      Fra Bartolommeo's principal followers. When quite a child he lost his
+      father, the famous Domenico, who died of fever, on January 11th, 1494; his
+      mother and uncle Benedetto only lived a few years after; and Ridolfo, with
+      his three sisters and two brothers, was left to the guardianship of his
+      uncle Davide.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ridolfo was the only one who chose the family profession, and he became
+      the fourth painter of the name of Ghirlandajo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Davide was not a perfect artist, although a good mosaicist, as his works
+      in the cathedrals of Orvieto, Siena, and Florence show, but he was for
+      many years Ridolfo's only instructor. As the boy grew up Ridolfo
+      frequented those public schools of art before spoken of, the Brancacci
+      Chapel, and the study of the cartoons in the Papal Hall. Here he secured
+      the friendship not only of Granacci and Pier di Cosimo, but of Raphael
+      himself, with whom he visited Fra Bartolommeo in his convent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Raphael permitted Ridolfo to assist him in a Madonna for Siena, and tried
+      to persuade him to accompany him to Rome; but Ridolfo, like a true
+      Florentine, declined to go "beyond sight of the Duomo."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His first great picture was done in 1504 for the church of San Gallo. The
+      subject was <i>Christ Searing His Cross</i>. His uncle Benedetto had
+      laboured on a similar picture, now in the Louvre, but Ridolfo's is a great
+      improvement on this; the composition is well balanced, full of force and
+      animation, the weeping figures of the Maries and the solicitude of S.
+      Veronica are very lifelike, although he has not entirely abolished his
+      uncle's coarseness in the scowling, low-typed men. The Christ and the
+      Virgin are, on the contrary, so refined as to induce the supposition that
+      this force of contrast was intentional; the landscape is rather hard and
+      crude in tone, the flesh tints smooth, and the handling similar to that of
+      Credi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The original is now in Palazzo Antinori, Florence, but a replica, in which
+      he was assisted by Michele, his favourite pupil and adopted son, is in
+      Santo Spirito.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vasari speaks of a <i>Nativity</i>, painted for the Cistercian monks of
+      Cestello; a beautiful composition, in which the Madonna adores the holy
+      child, S. Joseph standing near her; S. Francis and S. Jerome kneel in
+      adoration; the landscape was sketched from the hills near "La Vernia,"
+      where S. Francis received the stigmata.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Maselli says the picture was lost when the monastery changed hands, but
+      Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle [Footnote: History of fainting, vol. in.
+      chap. xvi. pp. 523, 524.] believe they have found it in the Hermitage at
+      S. Petersburg, under Granacci's name. It is possible that the favourite
+      pupil of his father and Ridolfo's own friend may have assisted him. The
+      landscape is Raphaelesque, and might mark the time when that master and
+      Fra Bartolommeo influenced his style. His best manner approached so nearly
+      to that of the Frate, that had he continued he would have very nearly
+      rivalled his excellence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His two masterpieces are now in the Uffizi; they were painted for the
+      Brotherhood of S. Zenobio, 1510, to stand one on each side of
+      Albertinelli's <i>Annunciation</i>. One is <i>S. Zenobio</i> (the first
+      bishop and patron saint of Florence) <i>restoring a dead child to life</i>;
+      the other the <i>Funeral Procession of the Saint passing the Baptistery</i>,
+      where an elm tree, which had been withered, put forth fresh leaves as the
+      coffin of the bishop touched it. A marble column, with a bronze tree in
+      relief on it, stands on the spot as a memorial of this miracle. In these
+      two works Ridolfo Ghirlandajo proved the power which was in him, but they
+      are the culmination of his art; he never surpassed, or indeed equalled
+      them again. His richness of colouring and deep relief equalled that of the
+      Frate, the animation and expression rivalled Andrea del Sarto. In the
+      first picture, the eagerness of the crowd, the intense feeling of the
+      mother, in whom grief for the dead child seems almost greater than the
+      hope of his resuscitation, the sturdy, solid character of the Florentines
+      of the Republic, are all given with a masterly hand, while a rich blending
+      of colour fuses the animated crowd in a harmonious unison. In the latter,
+      grandeur and dignity mark the group of ecclesiastics which surrounds the
+      archbishop's bier, the full solid falls of their drapery show that he had
+      well studied his father's works.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ridolfo's brothers became monks, Don Bartolommeo lived in the Camaldoline
+      Monastery of the Angeli, which Ridolfo beautified with many works. Paolo
+      Uccelli had adorned the Loggia with frescoed stories from the life of S.
+      Benedict. Ridolfo added two to the series. In one the Saint is at table
+      with two angels, waiting for S. Romano to send his bread from the grotto,
+      but the devil has cut the cord and taken it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another is <i>S, Benedict investing a youth with the habit of the order</i>.
+      In the church of the same monastery he painted a beautiful <i>Madonna and
+      Child, with Angels</i>, above the holy water vase, and <i>S. Romualdo with
+      the Camaldolese Hermitage in his Hand</i>, in a lunette in the cloister.
+      All these were done as a brotherly gift, and after they were finished, the
+      abbot, Don Andrea Dossi, gave him a commission to paint a <i>Last Supper</i>
+      in the refectory, which he did, placing the portrait of the abbot in the
+      corner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ridolfo, like his father, regarded art rather as a means of livelihood
+      than with any aesthetic feelings, and this is probably the reason of his
+      never attaining true excellence. His "bottega" was really a shop where any
+      one might order a work of art, or of artisanship, and he gave as much
+      attention to painting a banner for a procession as to composing an
+      altar-piece. He had a great many assistants, whom he called on for help in
+      various undertakings. They assisted him to prepare the Medici Halls for
+      the reception of Pope Leo X., and later for the marriages of Giuliano and
+      Lorenzo, not disdaining to paint scenes for the dramas which were then
+      given. He painted banners, and designed costumes for the processions of
+      the "potenze," a festive company, the origin of which is uncertain, but
+      dating certainly from the Middle Ages. Each quarter of the city had an
+      emperor, lords, and dignitaries, each of whom carried his banner or
+      emblazonment. Grand processions, tournaments, and feasts were held once a
+      year, on S. John's Day, by the potenze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having assisted at the triumphs and marriages of the Medici princes, he
+      also furnished the funeral pomp and magnificence on the deaths of the
+      brothers, that of Giuliano occurring in 1516, of Lorenzo 1519.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lucratively it answered his purpose; the Medici gave him great honour; he
+      was well paid by them, and got the commission to decorate the Chapel of
+      the Palazzo Vecchio&mdash;a very good specimen of his fresco painting, in
+      which he never reached his father's excellence, although in oil he far
+      surpassed him. The chapel is small; the groined roof is covered with
+      emblematical designs on a blue ground, a Trinity in the midst with angels
+      bearing symbols of the passions around. The apostles and evangelists
+      surround this, and the principal wall has a larger fresco of the <i>Annunciation</i>&mdash;a
+      rather conventional rendering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Commissions flowed in on him to such a degree, that although he had
+      fifteen children, he lived to amass money and lands, to see his daughters
+      well married, and his sons prosperous merchants trading to distant lands.
+      He died on the 6th of June, 1561, and lies with his forefathers in the
+      church of S. Maria Novella.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ANDREA D'AGNOLO,
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      CALLED ANDREA DEL SARTO.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I. YOUTH AND EARLY WORKS. A.D. 1487-1511.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Andrea Del Sarto is a curious instance of the vital power of art, which,
+      like a flower forcing its way to the light through walls or rocks, will
+      find expression in spite of obstacles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrea the painter, "senza errori," was an artist in spite of lowering
+      home influences, of want of encouragement in his patrons&mdash;for his
+      greatest works only brought the smallest remuneration&mdash;and even in
+      spite of his own nature, which was material, wanting in high aims, and
+      deficient in ideality; yet his name lives for ever as a great master, and
+      his works rank close to those of the leaders of the Renaissance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In looking at them one sighs even in the midst of admiration, thinking
+      that if the hand which produced them had been guided by a spark of divine
+      genius instead of the finest talent, what glorious works they would have
+      been! The truth is that Andrea's was a receptive, rather than an original
+      and productive mind. His art was more imitative than spontaneous, and this
+      forms perhaps the difference between talent and genius. The art of his
+      time sunk into his mind, and was reproduced. He lived precisely at the
+      time of the culmination of art, when all the highest masters were bringing
+      forth their grandest works; therefore he could not do otherwise than to
+      follow the best examples.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He gathered the experience of all&mdash;the force of Michelangelo, the
+      handling of Leonardo, the sentiment of Raphael, so blending them as to
+      form a style seemingly his own, and in execution following closely on
+      their excellence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Giotto's or Masaccio's case the master created the art; in Andrea's it
+      was the art of the age which made the artist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The question of Andrea del Sarto's birth is a mooted one. Biadi dates it
+      1478, but the register he quotes is both vague and doubtful. He also tells
+      a curious story of his Flemish origin. Signor Milanesi has deduced, from
+      the archives of Florence, an authentic pedigree from which we learn that
+      his remote ancestors were peasants, first at Buiano, near Fiesole, and
+      later at S. Ilario, near Montereggi. His grandfather, Francesco, being a
+      linen weaver, came to live nearer Florence; his father, Agnolo, son of
+      Francesco, followed the trade of a tailor&mdash;hence Andrea's sobriquet,
+      "del Sarto"&mdash;he took a house in Via Gualfonda, in Florence, about
+      1487, with his wife Constanza, and here Andrea was born, he being the
+      eldest of a family of five&mdash;three girls and two boys. From the tax
+      papers of a few years later it is proved that Andrea was born in 1487. His
+      full name is Andrea d'Agnolo di Francesco. It is by mistake that he has
+      been called Vannucchi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His parents were young, his father being only twenty-seven years of age at
+      Andrea's birth. They lived at that time in Val Fonda, where Albertinelli
+      had his shop, but in 1504 they removed to the popolo, or parish, of S.
+      Paolo. Boys were not allowed to be idle in those days, but were
+      apprenticed at an early age; thus Andrea, like most artists of his time,
+      was bound to a goldsmith. It would be interesting to investigate the great
+      influence of the guild of goldsmiths on the art of the Renaissance. The
+      reason why youths who showed a talent for design were entered in that
+      guild is easy to assign&mdash;it was one of the "greater" guilds, that of
+      the painters being a lesser one, and merged in the "Arte degli Speziali."
+      At seven years old he left the school where he had learned to read and
+      write, and entered his very youthful apprenticeship; but he showed so much
+      more aptitude for the designing than for the executive part of his
+      profession that <i>Giovanni Barile</i>, who frequented the bottega, was
+      induced to counsel his being trained especially as a painter, offering
+      himself as instructor. If Andrea, a contadino by birth, an artisan by
+      education, was not originally of the most refined nature, his artistic
+      training did not go far towards refining him. Giovanni Barile was a coarse
+      painter and a rough man; he had, however, generosity enough to see that
+      the boy was worthy of better teaching, and got him entered in the bottega
+      of Piero di Cosimo, who had attained a good rank as a colourist, his
+      eccentricities possibly adding to his reputation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Accordingly in 1498, Andrea being then eleven years of age, a life of
+      earnest study began. Piero di Cosimo, odd and misanthropic as he was, had
+      yet a true appreciation of talent, and showed an earnest interest in his
+      pupil, giving him&mdash;with plenty of queer treatment&mdash;a thorough
+      training. "He was not allowed to make a line which was not perfect"
+      [Footnote: Rosini, <i>Storia della Pittura</i>, chap. xvii. p. 40.] while
+      in Piero's school. But excellent as his art teaching may have been, the
+      boy's morale could not have been raised more here than under the rough but
+      good-natured Barile. We have seen Piero di Cosimo in his youth, the
+      serious, absent young man, who never joked with his juniors in Cosimo
+      Roselli's shop; we see him now, with his youthful oddities hardened into
+      eccentricities, and his reserve deepened to misanthropy. No woman's hand
+      softened and refined his house, no cleansing broom was allowed within his
+      door, and no gardener's hand cleared the weeds or pruned the vines in his
+      garden. He so believed in nature unassisted that he took his meals without
+      the intervention of a cook. When the fire was lighted to boil his size or
+      glue he would cook fifty or sixty eggs and set them apart in a basket, to
+      which he had recourse when the pangs of hunger compelled him. All this was
+      morally very bad for a boy so young. And then woe betide the poor little
+      fellow if he whistled, sneezed, or made any other noise! his nervous
+      master would be out of temper for a day afterwards. On wet days Piero was
+      merrier, for he would watch the drops splashing into the pools, and laugh
+      as if they were fairies. Sometimes he would take Andrea for a walk, and
+      all at once stop and gaze at a heap of rubbish, or mark of damp on a
+      lichened wall, picturing all kinds of monsters and weird scenes in its
+      discolourations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No doubt he was literally carrying out Leonardo da Vinci's advice, headed,
+      in his treatise, "A new Art of Invention." "Look at some old wall covered
+      with dirt, or the odd appearance of some old streaked stones; you may
+      discover several things like landscapes, battles, clouds, humorous faces,
+      &amp;c., to furnish the mind with new designs." [Footnote: Leonardo da
+      Vinci, <i>Treatise on Painting</i>.] Cosimo's mind being fantastic, the
+      pictures he saw were incomparably grotesque. He delighted in drawing sea
+      monsters, dragons, wonderful adventures, and heathen scenes; in fact the
+      boy could have learned neither Christian art nor manners from him. He
+      learned how to use his brush, however, and, leaving Piero to his minotaurs
+      and dragons, went off at every spare hour to study at more congenial
+      shrines. He copied Masaccio at the Brancacci Chapel, and drew so earnestly
+      from the cartoons in the Hall of the Pope that his achievements reached
+      the ears of Piero himself, who was not sorry that his pupil surpassed the
+      rest, and gave him more time for study away from the bottega. Rosini tells
+      us that "Fra Bartolommeo taught him the first steps." [Footnote: <i>Storia
+      della Pittura</i>, chap, xxvii. p. 2.] The influence of the Frate may have
+      reached him in two ways. It is not unlikely that Piero di Cosimo kept up
+      an interest in his old fellow-pupil; and then again, as Andrea lived in
+      Val Fonda, it is probable he often visited Albertinelli's studio in that
+      street, and the friendship with Francia Bigio began before the cartoons of
+      Michelangelo ripened there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The evidence of style goes to show that the works of Albertinelli and Fra
+      Bartolommeo influenced him more than those of Piero. Yet though his sphere
+      was devotional, it was "impelled more by a material sense of beauty than
+      by the deep religious feeling which inspired the Frate."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As time went on the youth in strange old Piero's studio became more famous
+      than his master, and felt that he could do greater things away from the
+      stiff method which cramped him, and the whimsicalities which annoyed him.
+      His friend, Francia Bigio, Mariotto's pupil, having just then lost his
+      master, who was giving more attention to his father-in-law's business of
+      innkeeper than his own, was willing to enter into partnership, and the two
+      youths began life together in 1509 or 1510, in a room near the Piazza del
+      Grano, in the first house in Via del Moro, which still remains in its old
+      state.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first bit of patronage recorded is the commission for the frescoes in
+      the Scalzo; that they had work before is proved by the words in the
+      contract of the Barefoot Friars, "dettero ad Andrea pittore <i>celeberrimo</i>
+      il dipingere nel Chiosto." The "celebrated" presupposes works already
+      done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Scalzo was a name given to the "Compagnia dei Disciplinati di S.
+      Giovanni Battista," because they went barefoot when they carried the cross
+      in their processions. They lived in a convent in Via Larga (now Cavour),
+      opposite San Marco. A new cloister had been erected there&mdash;an elegant
+      little cortile, thirty-eight feet by thirty-two, adorned with lovely
+      Corinthian pillars&mdash;and the Brethren were anxious to fill the
+      lunettes of the arches with frescoes at the least possible expense, wisely
+      judging that a young artist on his way to fame would be the best to
+      employ.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The frescoes, of which there would be twelve large, and four small ones in
+      the upright spaces by the doors, were to be done in "terretta," or brown
+      earth, and to be paid fifty-six lire (eight scudi) for the large, and
+      twenty-one lire (three scudi) each for the lesser frescoes. The small ones
+      were four figures of the Virtues, <i>Faith</i>, <i>Hope</i>, <i>Justice</i>,
+      and <i>Charity</i>. <i>Hope</i> is exquisitely expressed, and <i>Charity</i>
+      a charming group, the children most tenderly drawn. The subjects, though
+      not all finished till many years later, stand now in the following order;
+      the second row of figures, with the dates, show the order in which they
+      were painted:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ 1. Gabriel appearing to Zacharias          Andrea del Sarto   9  1523.
+ 2. Visitation                              Andrea del Sarto  10  1523.
+ 3. Birth of S. John                        Andrea del Sarto   4  1514.
+ 4. Zacharias blessing John before going    Francia Bigio.
+      to the desert
+ 5. S. John meets the Virgin and Infant     Francia Bigio.
+      Christ
+ 6. Baptism of Christ                       Andrea del Sarto   1  1509.
+ 7. Preaching of S. John                    Andrea del Sarto   2  1514.
+ 8. Baptism of the Gentiles                 Andrea del Sarto   3  1514.
+ 9. S. John bound in the presence of Herod  Andrea del Sarto   5  1522.
+10. Dance of Herodias Andrea del Sarto 6 1522. 11. Beheading of S.
+ John Andrea del Sarto 7 1522. 12. Herodias receives the head of S. John
+ Andrea del Sarto 8 1522.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Of these, No. 6 was the first executed, and it is probable that Francia
+      Bigio assisted him, for it has not the finished drawing nor careful
+      handling of any of Andrea's other frescoes. Possibly this is the cause of
+      the partners never working together afterwards, each taking his own
+      subjects and signing his own name. The composition, in the <i>Baptism of
+      Christ</i>, is not original, being very similar to that of Verocchio's,
+      especially in the two angels kneeling on the left bank; the landscape and
+      figures, however, are far in advance of that master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It will be well to speak of the whole set of frescoes in this place, for
+      although they belong to different times and styles, they are a complete
+      work, and might be taken almost as an epitome of Andrea's career; from the
+      one above mentioned in which Piero de Cosimo's influence is apparent, to
+      the Nos. 7 and 8, which very nearly approach Michelangelo's power and
+      freedom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In No. 1 the expression of muteness about the mouth of Zacharias, as he
+      stands by the altar, is wonderfully given; you feel sure he could not
+      speak if he would. The other figures are superfluous to the motive, though
+      adding grandeur to the work as a whole.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In composition Andrea differs widely from Fra Bartolommeo. The latter
+      delighted in building up a single form, every figure in the whole picture
+      adding its hue and weight to perfect this pyramid or circle. Andrea
+      spreads his figures more widely; he likes a double composition, dividing
+      his pictures into two separate groups, connected by one central figure, or
+      divided entirely. This is seen in Nos. 3, 10 and 12, which are all double
+      groupings, the last completely divided in the centre by a table and an
+      archway behind it. Nos. 7 and 9 are pyramidal compositions. The <i>Preaching
+      of S. John</i> is one of the best works, and shows his most forcible
+      style. S. John on a rock stands like a pillar in the centre, the hearers
+      are dressed in the "lucco" (a Florentine cloak of the 15th century), the
+      grouping following the lines of the landscape. At the back Jesus kneels on
+      a rising ground. Vasari says the figures are from Albrecht Dürer, whose
+      works had made a great impression on the southern world of art; but it is
+      more probable that they only show his influence, for the dress and style
+      are Florentine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No. 8, the <i>Baptism of the Gentiles</i>, is another of his best style,
+      and is, in the drawing of the nude figures, almost Michelangelesque in
+      power. This is one of his favourite "echo" subjects, a group in the
+      background of <i>John answering the Pharisees </i>forming an echo to the
+      principal subject. The muscular life of the spirited crowd of nude figures
+      is beautifully contrasted by the graceful draped forms in the background.
+      One of the baptized is the same child whom he had modelled in the <i>Madonna</i>
+      of S. Francisco.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nos. 4 and 5 are by Francia Bigio, and were done during Andrea's absence
+      in France, showing that he had so far learned from his friend as almost to
+      rival him in power. The subjects, although not scriptural, are
+      conjecturally true.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the <i>Zacharias blessing John before he goes to the Desert</i>, the
+      sitting figure of S. Elizabeth and the kneeling one of the child are very
+      lovely; the action of Zacharias is not so well defined, the great force in
+      the uplifted arm betokens anger more than blessing. The grouping follows
+      the lines of a flight of steps in the background, and is triangular.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The same form of composition is apparent in the next group (No. 5), only
+      the lines form an angle receding from the one just mentioned. The Virgin
+      is charmingly posed and draped, the children less pleasing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This elegant little cloister is a true shrine of art, although the
+      frescoes are all in monochrome. So much were they admired at the time,
+      that an order was issued prohibiting artists to copy them without the
+      permission of Duke Cosimo. Cardinal Carlo de' Medici had them covered with
+      curtains, [Footnote: Richa, <i>Delle Chiese</i>] but, in spite of care,
+      they are very much injured, the under parts almost lost. The precaution of
+      covering the cloister with a glass roof has only been taken in modern
+      times, and too late.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrea's next patrons were the Eremite monks of S. Agostino, at San Gallo,
+      who ordered of him two pictures for their church. In 1511 he painted <i>Christ
+      appearing to Mary Magdalen</i>, and an <i>Annunciation</i> in 1512. The
+      former is said to have had much softness and delicacy, the latter is to be
+      seen in the Hall of Mars at the Pitti, and is a very pleasing picture. The
+      Virgin kneels at her prayer desk, S. Joseph behind her&mdash;a rather
+      unusual rendering of the subject&mdash;her attitude is graceful and
+      decorous, the angel calm and gentle, floats in mid air, two other angels
+      stand on the left. The colouring is varied in the extreme, and the lights
+      well defined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These two pictures, and the <i>Disputa</i>, painted later, were removed to
+      the church of S. Jacopo tra Fossi, when the convent was demolished in
+      1529. They were still there in 1677, when Bocchi wrote his <i>Bellezze di
+      Firenze</i>, but the <i>Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen</i> is said to
+      be now in the church of the Covoni in the Casentino.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II. THE SERVITE CLOISTER. A.D. 1511-1512.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The next great works were the frescoes in the Court of S. Annunziata, if
+      indeed they were not carried on simultaneously with those in the Scalzo.
+      This famous series of Andrea's works was obtained by cunning, and painted
+      in emulation. While the two partners, who had differed from the beginning,
+      and had since become rivals, were engaged in the Scalzo, a certain astute
+      Fra Mariano, the keeper of the wax candle stores at the Servite Convent&mdash;to
+      which the church of the S. Annunziata belonged&mdash;had watched well
+      those two young painters. Fra Mariano understood human nature, as priests
+      often do; he had seen the envious rivalship growing between them, as the
+      friends, who should have worked together, took separate compartments, and
+      cast jealous criticising glances on each other's designs and method of
+      work. Having ambition of his own, he knew how to work on that of others to
+      further his own aspirations, which were, to be considered a patron of art
+      and a benefactor to his convent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Reading Andrea's heart, he played on all his strongest feelings, placed
+      before him the glory he would win by covering the lunettes of the arches
+      in the court of the fine church with frescoes which would carry his name
+      down to posterity; he said that any other artist would pay much to obtain
+      leave to paint upon historical walls like those, and how they would all
+      envy the man who should obtain the coveted honour! Then, with a
+      half-whispered hint that for one, Francia Bigio was dying to get the
+      commission for nothing, the wily Frate went his way victorious. Andrea,
+      scorning to make any pecuniary bargain, only stipulated that no one else
+      should paint in that courtyard, and forthwith began the <i>Stories from
+      the Life of S. Filippo Benizzi</i>, having only old Alesso Baldovinetti's
+      <i>Nativity</i>, and Cosimo Roselli's <i>Miracle of S. Filippo</i>, as
+      foils to his own. These two works were on the walls on each side of the
+      church door; there were therefore three entire sides of the cloister to
+      cover, excepting only the entrance into the courtyard from the Piazza, and
+      no doubt he felt like Ghirlandajo, when "he wished he had the entire
+      circuit of the city walls to paint."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the 16th of June, 1511, he began to paint with such vigour that in a
+      few months the first three were uncovered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      1. <i>S. Philip at Viterbo with the Court, dressing a naked leper in his
+      own cloak</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      2. <i>S. Philip going from Bologna to Modena</i>. He rebukes some
+      gamblers, telling them the vengeance of God is near. A sudden thunderstorm
+      and lightning destroy them, thus fulfilling the prediction. There is a
+      great deal of fine action in this composition; the horror and disbelief
+      struggling in the faces of the men, and the stormy landscape are all well
+      rendered. A horse leaps away with strong, terrified action, there is a
+      masterly grasp of his vivid subject, and a rugged strength in the
+      execution which gives great life to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      3. <i>S. Philip exorcises a Girl possessed of a Demon</i>. Here the
+      composition is very tender, the mother and father support the sick girl,
+      and form a very pleasing group; the figures of the spectators are full of
+      life without exaggeration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These works have suffered much from exposure, but the colouring is still
+      good. The praise that Andrea obtained for them was so great that he
+      followed them up by the two in the next series.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      4. <i>A Child brought to life by touching the bier of S. Philip</i>. This
+      is a kind of double composition, the child being represented in a twofold
+      condition in the foreground, first as dead, and then revived at the touch
+      of the bier. The grouping around the dead saint is very suggestive of
+      Ghirlandajo, and shews a deep study of his frescoes in the Sassetti
+      Chapel. The colouring is peculiarly his own; there is the mingling of a
+      great variety of bright tints of equal intensity, which by some necromancy
+      are made to relieve each other, instead of being relieved by the art of
+      chiaroscuro as in the handling of other masters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      5. <i>Children healed by the garments of S. Philip</i>, which are held by
+      a priest, standing before an altar, the women and their children kneeling
+      in front of him. The grouping is symmetrical, the figures lifelike, but
+      not refined, round-cheeked buxom women, and rough, human men's faces,
+      bespeak Andrea as the painter of reality rather than ideality; there is
+      vivid life in every attitude, but the life is not high caste. A fine old
+      man, leaning on his staff, is a portrait of Andrea della Robbia, whose son
+      Luca stands near.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For all these Fra Mariano paid only ten scudi each, and Andrea, feeling
+      the remuneration not equal to the merit of the work, would have left off
+      here, but the Frate held him to his bond. Two more lunettes yet remained
+      to finish, but as these were of a later date, we will reserve them for a
+      future chapter. He also painted in the <i>orto</i>, or garden, of the
+      convent, the now perished fresco of the <i>Parable of the Vineyard</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, the rival friends had changed lodgings; they left the Piazza
+      del Grano, and took rooms in the Sapienza, a street between the Piazza San
+      Marco and the S. Annunziata. Andrea chose this because it was near his
+      work, and also because his great friends, Sansovino and Rustici, already
+      lived there. Commissions began to pour in on him, which he fulfilled,
+      while still at work at the Servi. Judging from the style of his early
+      manner, we may date at this time a <i>Virgin and Child, with S. John and
+      S. Joseph</i>, now in the Pitti. It is painted "alla prima," <i>i.e.</i> a
+      quick method of giving the effect in the first painting,&mdash;and is
+      probably the one spoken of by Vasari as painted for Andrea Santini; it
+      formerly belonged to Francesco Troschi. [Footnote: <i>Life of Andrea del
+      Sarto</i>, vol iii, p. 193.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A <i>S. Agnes</i>, in the palace of the Prince Palatine, at Düsseldorf, is
+      in this early style. He also painted some frescoes at San Salvi, <i>SS.
+      Giovanni Gualberto and Benedict resting on clouds</i>; they ornamented the
+      recess where the <i>Last Supper</i> was placed at a later period.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a narrow alley, behind the church of Or San Michele, is a tabernacle on
+      the wall beneath an ancient balcony. Here the architect, Baccio d'Agnolo,
+      commissioned Andrea del Sarto to paint an <i>Annunciation</i>. It is so
+      much injured as to be almost indistinguishable now, but was much admired
+      at the time, though some say it was too laboured, and so wanting in ease
+      and grace. [Footnote: Biadi, 26; Vasari, vol. iii, p 189.] It is more
+      likely that it was one of his early works, and should be classed before
+      the frescoes of the Scalzo, for it is said that he was living at the time
+      with his father, whose shop was over the archway, and that he had adorned
+      the inner walls of the house with two frescoed angels. [Footnote: <i>Firenze
+      antica e moderna</i> Ed. Flor. 1794, vol. vi, p. 216.] These have perished
+      completely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III. SOCIAL LIFE AND MARRIAGE. A.D. 1511-1516.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      This chapter will speak of the <i>man</i>, and not of the <i>artist</i>.
+      As it is now understood that history is not a dry record of battles and
+      laws, but the story of the inner life of a people, so the biography of a
+      painter ought not to consist wholly in a list and description of his
+      works, but a picture of his life and inner mind, that we may know the
+      character which prompted the works.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      First, as to personal appearance. There are two portraits of Andrea del
+      Sarto in his youth; one in the Duke of Northumberland's collection
+      represents him as a young man with long hair, and a black cap, writing at
+      a table. It is painted in a soft, harmonious style, but not masterly as
+      regards chiaroscuro. It might be by Francia Bigio, as it has something of
+      the manner of his master, Albertinelli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another now in the Uffizi is a most life-like portrait of sombre
+      colouring, but not highly finished. Here we have the same black cap and
+      long hair; the dress is a painter's blouse of a blue-grey, which well
+      brings out the flesh tints. The face is intelligent, but not refined; the
+      clear dark eyes bespeak the artist spirit, but the full mobile mouth tells
+      the material nature of the man. In looking at this one can solve the
+      riddle of the dissonance between his art and his life. As a young man
+      Andrea was full of spirit; he loved lively society, and knew almost all
+      the young artists who lived very much as students now. They met each other
+      in the art schools, and dined and feasted together in the wine shops.
+      Sometimes they formed private clubs, meeting in certain rooms for purposes
+      of youthful merriment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of this kind was the "Society of the Cauldron" ("Società del Paiuolo"),
+      held at the apartment of the eccentric sculptor, Rustici, which was in the
+      same street as that of Andrea himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sansovino, who also lived near, was not a member of this rollicking club;
+      he was one of Andrea's more serious friends, and served as companion when
+      his most exalted moods were upon him. Perhaps Rustici's rooms did not
+      please Sansovino, for strange inmates were there&mdash;a hedgehog, an
+      eagle, a talking raven, snakes and reptiles, in a kind of aquarium;
+      besides all these gruesome familiar spirits, Rustici was addicted to
+      necromancy. The Society of the Cauldron seems only a natural outgrowth
+      from such a character. It consisted of twelve members, all artists,
+      goldsmiths, or musicians, each of whom was allowed to bring four friends
+      to the supper, and bound to provide a dish. Any two members bringing
+      similar dishes were fined, but the droll part of it was that the suppers
+      were eaten in a huge cauldron large enough to put table and chairs into;
+      the handle served as an arched chandelier, the table was on a lift, and
+      when one course was finished it disappeared from their midst, and
+      descended to be replenished. As for the viands, the sculptors displayed
+      their talents in moulding classical subjects in pastry, and turning boiled
+      fowls into figures of Ulysses and Laertes. The architects built up temples
+      and palaces of jellies, cakes, and sausages; the goldsmith, Robetta,
+      produced an anvil and accoutrements made of a calf's head, the painters
+      treated roast pig to represent a scullery-maid spinning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrea del Sarto built up the model of the Baptistery with all kinds of
+      eatables, with a reading desk of veal, and book with letters inlaid with
+      truffles, at which the choristers were roast thrushes with open beaks,
+      while the canons were pigeons in red mantles of beetroot&mdash;an idea
+      more droll than reverential.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After this, in 1512, another club, called that of the "Trowel," was
+      instituted, of which Andrea was not a member, but was chosen as an
+      associate. The first supper was arranged by Giuliano Bugiardini, and was
+      held on the <i>aja</i> or threshing floor of S. Maria Nuova, where the
+      bronze gates of the Baptistery had been cast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this no two members were allowed to wear the same style of dress under
+      penalty of a fine. The members were in two ranks, the "lesser" and the
+      "greater," a parody on the guilds of the city. They were shown the plan of
+      a building, and the "greater" members, furnished with trowels, were
+      obliged to build it in edibles, the "lesser" acting as hodmen, and
+      bringing materials. Pails of ricotta or goat's milk cheese served for
+      mortar, grated cheese for sand, sugar plums for gravel, cakes and pastry
+      for bricks, the basement was of meats, the pillars fowls or sausages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some suppers were classical scenes, others allegorical representations,
+      always in the same edible form. We can imagine the wit which sparkled
+      round these strange tables, the jokes of the artists, the songs of the
+      musicians. Andrea del Sarto is said to have recited an heroi-comic poem in
+      six cantos called the "Battle of the frogs and mice." Biadi gives it
+      entire; it seems a kind of satire on Rustici's tastes, with perhaps a hit
+      at the government, and shows no lack of wit of rather unrefined style; but
+      the authorship is not proved. Some say Ottaviano de Medici assisted Andrea
+      in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would have been well for Andrea if this innocent jollity had sufficed
+      for him, but unfortunately he admired a woman whose beauty was greater
+      than her merits. Probably he began by mere artistic appreciation of her
+      personal charms, for she sat to him for the <i>Madonna of the Visitation</i>,
+      which was painted in 1514, two years before their marriage. This Lucrezia
+      della Fede was the wife of a hatter who lived in Via San Gallo. Her
+      husband dying after a short illness, Andrea del Sarto married her, and
+      whatever were her faults, she retained his life-long love. Biadi and
+      Reumont give the date 26th of December, 1512, as that of the death of her
+      husband, but Signor Milanesi, from more authentic sources, proves it to
+      have been in 1516.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A great deal has been said and written of the evil influence this woman
+      had on him, and his very house bears an inscription recording his fame
+      together with "affanni domestici," but it would seem that posterity has
+      taken for truth more than the facts of the time imply. That she was proud,
+      haughty, exacting, and not of a high moral nature, that she was selfish,
+      and begrudged his helping his own family, her every action proves. That
+      her manners were not conciliating to the pupils is possible, perhaps their
+      manners savoured too much of familiarity for a woman who believed in her
+      own charms; but that she was faithless, which her biographers assert on
+      the strength of Vasari's phrase, "that Andrea was tormented by jealousy,"
+      there is literally nothing to show.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the first place Vasari&mdash;who was one of the scholars she offended
+      and put down&mdash;gives vent to his private pique in his first edition,
+      and in the second, which only contains a slight mention of her, omits
+      almost all he had previously said. Now, if the first assertions were true
+      why should he retract them? Secondly, the sixteenth century was an age of
+      license in writing and speaking, and had any immoralities been laid to her
+      charge, not a biographer would have scrupled to particularize them; but
+      no! her name is never mentioned, except with her husband's, even by her
+      greatest enemies, who say she was as haughty as she was beautiful.
+      Thirdly, a faithless woman could never have kept her husband's devoted
+      love, and had she been so, would that affectionate though exaggerated
+      letter of hers, recalling him from France, have been written? That a man
+      who thinks his wife the most lovely creature living may be tormented with
+      jealousy without wrong doing on her part is more than possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us then place Lucrezia's character where it ought to stand in Andrea
+      del Sarto's life&mdash;as a powerful influence, lowering his moral nature,
+      weaning him from his duties as a son and brother, by fixing all his care
+      and affection on herself; she, however, not allowing her own family to be
+      losers by her marriage, although causing him to slight his own. Even this
+      much-spoken-of neglect of his own family seems disproved by his will,
+      which, after a very little more than her own dot left to his wife, makes
+      his brother and niece heirs of all his estate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Except that she cared more for her own pleasure than his true advancement,
+      she was not any great hindrance to his artistic career; he painted an
+      incredible number of pictures, and she was willing to sit for him over and
+      over again. Indeed if she were his model for all the Madonnas in which her
+      features are recognisable, she must have had either inexhaustible patience
+      or great love for the artist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In fact she was thoroughly selfish; as long as she reaped the benefit of
+      his work she furthered his art; where she was left out of his
+      consideration he must be brought back to her side at any sacrifice to him.
+      This is not the stuff of which an artist's wife ought to be made; the
+      influence of a strong-willed selfish nature on his weak and material one
+      was not good, and his <i>morale</i> became lowered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He felt this deterioration less than his friends felt it for him; even
+      Vasari says that "though he lived in torment, he yet accounted it a high
+      pleasure." It was one of those unions in which the man gives everything,
+      and the woman receives and allows every sacrifice. Her family were kept at
+      his expense, her daughter loved as his own, and if she were haughty or
+      exacting, he suffered with a Socratic patience, thinking life with her a
+      privilege.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is to be supposed that a member of the societies of the Cauldron and
+      the Trowel would appreciate good living. He was so devoted to the
+      pleasures of the table that he went to market himself early every morning
+      and came home laden with delicacies. [Footnote: Biadi, <i>Notixie inedite</i>,
+      &amp;c., chap. xix. p. 62.] A curious confirmation of this is to be found
+      in his house, the dining-room of which is beautifully frescoed, the arched
+      roof in Raphaelesque scrolls and grotesques; while the lunettes of one
+      wall have two large pictures, one of a woman roasting birds over a fire,
+      the other of a servant preparing the table for dinner. This love of good
+      living, however, in the end shortened his life, according to Biadi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After his marketing was over he turned his attention to art, going to his
+      fresco painting followed by his scholars, or superintending their work in
+      the "bottega." He was always a kind and thorough master, his manner just
+      and fatherly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sometimes he and Sansovino or other friends lounged away an hour in the
+      neighbouring shop of Nanni Unghero, where their mutual friend, Niccolò
+      Tribolo, did all the hard work, fetching and carrying blocks and saws
+      grumblingly. Tribolo often begged Sansovino to take him as his pupil,
+      which he did afterwards, and he became a famous sculptor. One of Andrea's
+      acquaintances was Baccio Bandinelli, who, as he thought he could equal
+      Michelangelo in sculpture, imagined that only a knowledge of Andrea del
+      Sarto's method of colouring was necessary to enable him to surpass him in
+      painting. To gain this knowledge he proposed to sit to Andrea for his
+      portrait. His friend, discovering his motive, succeeded in frustrating it
+      by mixing a quantity of colours in seeming confusion on his palette, and
+      yet getting from this chaos exactly the tints he required. So Baccio never
+      rivalled his friend in colouring after all, not being able to understand
+      his method.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV. WORKS IN FLORENCE. A.D. 1511-1515.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      From 1511 to 1514 Andrea was employed on the two last frescoes in the
+      courtyard of the SS. Annunziata the <i>Epiphany</i> and the <i>Nativity of
+      the Virgin</i>. The sum fixed for these was ninety-eight lire, but the
+      Servite brothers augmented it by forty-two lire more, seeing the work was
+      "veramente maravigliosa"; thus these two were paid at the same rate as the
+      other five of S. Filippo&mdash;seventy lire or ten scudi each.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the <i>Nativity</i>, one of the finest of his frescoes, we see his
+      favourite double grouping, the interest in the mother being kept to one
+      side, that of the child and its attendants to the other-a balance of form
+      united by Joachim, a stern, finely moulded figure in the centre. The
+      attitudes are natural, the draperies free and graceful. Old Vasari justly
+      remarks "pajono di carne le figure." The woman standing in the centre of
+      the room is Lucrezia della Fede; this is the first known likeness of her.
+      There is a richness of colour without impasto, a modulation of shade
+      giving full relief without startling contrast, a clear air below and
+      celestial haze in the angel-peopled clouds above.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This might well be classed as on the highest level ever reached in fresco.
+      Nearly fifty years after it was painted, while Jacopo d'Empoli was copying
+      this fresco, an old woman came through the courtyard to mass, and,
+      stopping to watch the young artist at his work, began to talk of the days
+      of her youth and beauty when she sat for the likeness of that natural
+      figure in the midst, no doubt sighing as she looked at the freshness of
+      the fresco, and thought of her many wrinkles and aged limbs, she being
+      nearly fourscore at the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The <i>Epiphany</i> is also a remarkable work, more lively than the last;
+      it is also less carefully painted, the graceful feminine element is
+      wanting; there is plenty of activity, a crowded composition, and richness
+      of colour. Three figures are especially interesting as likenesses; that of
+      the musician Francesco Ajolle&mdash;a great composer of madrigals, who
+      went to France in 1530, and spent the remainder of his life there;
+      Sansovino, on the right of Ajolle; and near him Andrea himself&mdash;the
+      same face as the portrait in the Uffizi already spoken of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The <i>Madonna del Sacco</i>, over the door of the entrance to the church
+      from the cloister, would seem to have been painted in the same year, 1514,
+      judging from Biadi's extract from the MS. account books of the Servite
+      Fathers existing in the archives, where is an entry "Giugno, 1514, ad
+      Andrea del Sarto, per resto della Madonna del Sacco, lire 56." This term
+      <i>resto</i> (remainder) would imply a previous payment. The money was a
+      thank-offering from a woman for having been absolved from a vow by one of
+      the Servite priests. Like all his other frescoes of this church, Andrea
+      only gained ten scudi for this masterpiece. The date of MDXXV. and the
+      words "Quem genuit adoravit" on the pilasters of this work have led most
+      writers to suppose it painted in that year; but it is probable they were
+      added by a later hand. Biadi [Footnote: Biadi, <i>Notizie</i>, &amp;c., p.
+      42 note.] says the letters are of the style of nearly two centuries later,
+      that Andrea would have signed it, like all his other and works, with his
+      monogram of the crossed A's (i.e. Andrea d' Agnolo). For charming soft
+      harmonies of colour, simplicity, and grace of design, this surpasses all
+      his other frescoes. The Madonna has an imposing grandeur of form, there is
+      a boyish strength and moulding in the limbs of the child which is very
+      expressive, the dignity of Joseph and majesty of the Virgin are not to be
+      surpassed; and yet the whole is given in a space so cramped that all the
+      figures have to be reclining or sitting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002"> IMG--></a>
+    </p>
+
+    <p>
+      After this Andrea returned to the Scalzo, the Barefoot Brothers offering
+      better pay than the Servites. Here he did the allegory of <i>Justice</i>
+      and the <i>Sermon of S. John</i> in monochrome. In these he took a fancy
+      to retrograde his style, for they have the rugged force and angular form
+      that recalls the more stern old Italian masters, or that Titan of northern
+      art, Albrecht Dürer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of his works in oil at this era we may class&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      1. The <i>Story of Joseph</i>, painted for Zanobi Girolami Bracci, which
+      Borghini judges a beautiful picture. The figures were small, but the
+      painting highly finished. It came afterwards into the possession of the
+      Medici family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      2. A <i>Madonna</i>, with decorations and models surrounding it like a
+      frame, was painted for Sansovino's patron, Giovanni Gaddi, afterwards
+      clerk of the chamber to Ferdinand I. It was existing in the collection of
+      the Gaddi Pozzi family in Borghini's time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      3. <i>Annunciation</i>, for Giovanni di Paolo Merciajo, now in the Hall of
+      Saturn in the Pitti Palace. It is a pretty composition, the Virgin
+      sitting, yet half kneeling, the angel on his knees before her. There is a
+      yellowish light in the sky between two looped dark green curtains; the
+      angel's yellow robe takes the light beautifully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      4. <i>Madonna and Child</i>, in the "Hall of the Education of Jupiter" in
+      the Pitti Palace, one of his most pleasing groups. This is supposed by the
+      commentators of Vasari to be the altarpiece painted for Giovanni di Paolo
+      Merciajo, but Biadi traces it through the possession of Antonio, son of
+      Zanobi Bracci, to its present possessors. The mistake arises from Vasari
+      often confusing the names Annunciations and Assumptions with Madonnas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      5. A <i>Holy Family</i>, for Andrea Santini, which awakened great
+      admiration in Florence. It was in the possession of Signer Alessandro
+      Curti Lepri, by whose permission Morghen's print was taken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      6. The <i>Head of our Saviour</i>, over the altar of the SS. Annunziata,
+      ordered by the sacristan of the order. A magnificent head, full of
+      grandeur and expression, and very clear in the flesh tints. Empoli made
+      several copies of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      7. The <i>Madonna di San Francesco</i>, Andrea's masterpiece among easel
+      pictures. It was a commission from a monk of the order of "Minorites of
+      Santa Croce," who was intendant of the nuns of S. Francesco, and advised
+      them to employ Andrea. In grandiose simplicity this surpasses
+      Albertinelli's <i>Visitation</i>, in soft gradations and rich mellowness
+      of colour it equals Fra Bartolommeo at his best, for tenderness in the
+      attitude of the child it is quite Raphaelesque. The Madonna is standing on
+      a pedestal adorned with sculptured harpies. She holds the Divine Child in
+      one arm; its little hands are twined tenderly round her neck, and it seems
+      to be climbing closer to her. The two children at her feet give a
+      suggestive triangular grouping, while the dignified figures of S. Francis
+      and S. John the Evangelist form supports on each side, and rear up a
+      pyramid of beauty. Rosini's term "soave" just expresses this picture, so
+      fused and soft, rich yet transparent in the colouring. The olive-brown
+      robe of one saint is balanced by the rich red of the other. In the Virgin,
+      a deep blue and mellow orange are combined by a crimson bodice. The price
+      paid to the painter for this was low because he asked little; but a
+      century or two later, Ferdinando de' Medici, son of Cosmo III., spent
+      20,000 scudi to restore the church, and had a copy of the picture made in
+      return for a gift of the original, which is now the gem of the Tribune in
+      the Uffizi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      8. The <i>Disputa, di S. Agostino</i> is another masterpiece, showing as
+      much power as the last-named work displays of softness. It was painted at
+      the order of the Eremite monks of San Gallo for their church of San Jacopo
+      tra Fossi, where it was injured by a flood in 1557, and removed later to
+      the Hall of Saturn in the Pitti Palace. The composition is level, the four
+      disputing saints standing in a row, the two listeners, S. Sebastian and
+      Mary Magdalen, kneeling in front. S Agostino, with fierce vehemence,
+      expounds the mystery of the Trinity; S. Stephen turns to S. Francesco
+      interrogatively, S. Domenico (whom Vasari, by the way, calls S. Peter
+      Martyr) has a face full of silent eloquence&mdash;he seems only waiting
+      his turn to speak. In S. Sebastian we have a good study from the nude, and
+      in Mary Magdalen's kneeling figure&mdash;a charming portrait of Lucrezia&mdash;is
+      concentrated the principal focus of colour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      9. <i>Four Saints</i>, SS. Gio. Battista, Gio. Gualberto, S. Michele, and
+      Bernardo Cardinale, a beautifully-painted picture, once in the Hermitage
+      of Vallombrosa. There were originally two little angels in the midst
+      dividing the saints, as in our illustration. When the picture was
+      transferred to the Gallery of the Belle Arti, where it now is, the angels
+      were taken out and the divided saints brought into a more compact group.
+      The angels are in a frame between two frescoed Madonnas of Fra
+      Bartolommeo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By this time the fame of Andrea del Sarto, both as a fresco and oil
+      painter, had risen to the highest point. Michelangelo only echoed the
+      opinion of others when he said to Raphael, "There is a little fellow in
+      Florence who will bring the sweat to your brow if ever he is engaged in
+      great works." His style of composition was important, his figures varied
+      and life-like, his draperies dignified. "The main excellence, however, in
+      which Andrea stands unique among his contemporaries rests in the
+      incomparable blending of colour, in the soft flesh tints, in the exquisite
+      chiaroscuro, in the transparent clearness even of his deepest shadows, and
+      in his entirely new manner of perfect modelling." [Footnote: <i>Lübke
+      History of Art</i>, vol. ii. p. 241.] His method, as shown in an
+      unfinished picture of the <i>Adoration of the Magi</i> in the Guadagni
+      Palace, was to paint on a light ground; the sketch was a black outline,
+      the features and details not defined, but often roughly indicated. He
+      finished first the sky and background. The flesh tints, draperies, &amp;c.,
+      were all true in tone from the first laying in. [Footnote: Eastlake's <i>Materials
+      for History of Oil Fainting</i>.] He did not place shades one over the
+      other, and fuse them together glaze by glaze as Leonardo did, but used an
+      opaque dead colouring which allowed of correction; the system was rapid,
+      but deficient in depth and mellowness; "the lights are fused and bright,"
+      but "the shadows, owing to their viscous consistency, imperfectly fill the
+      outlines." [Footnote: Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. in. chap. xvii. p.
+      670.] In a <i>Holy Family</i> in the Louvre, S. Elizabeth's hand is
+      painted across S. John, and shows the shadow underneath it, being grey at
+      that part. Though more solid, he could not paint light over dark without
+      injuring his brilliance of colour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Albertinelli, on the contrary, when he painted and repainted his <i>Annunciation</i>,
+      washed out the under layer with essential oil before making his
+      "pentimenti" or corrections, and in this way the thinness was kept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Andrea's early style this thinness is apparent, especially in the
+      Joseph series, painted for Pier Francesco Borgherini.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Biadi classes Andrea's works in three styles. The first showing the
+      influence of Piero di Cosimo, the second&mdash;to which the best works in
+      the Servi cloisters belong&mdash;is a larger and more natural style, after
+      the study of Michelangelo and Leonardo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The third is the natural development in his own practice of a perfect
+      knowledge of art, and a just appreciation of nature. The <i>Birth of the
+      Baptist</i> and the <i>Cenacolo</i>, of San Salvi, belong to his last and
+      greatest manner. In 1515 the Florentine artists were employed on more
+      perishable works than frescoes. Leo X., the Medici Pope who had been
+      elected in 1513, made his triumphal entry into Florence on the 3rd of
+      September, 1515, on his way to meet Francis I. of France at Bologna. All
+      the guilds and ranks of Florence vied with each other to make his
+      reception as artistic as possible. He and his suite were obliged to stay
+      three days in the Villa Gianfigliazzi at Marignolle while the triumphal
+      preparations were being completed. The churches had temporary <i>façades</i>
+      of splendid architecture in fresco; arches were erected at the Porta
+      Romana and Piazza San Felice, covered with historical paintings; Giuliano
+      del Tasso adorned the Ponte Santa Trinità with statues; Antonio San Gallo
+      made a temple on the Piazza della Signoria, and Baccio Bandinelli prepared
+      a colossus in the Loggia dei Lanzi. Various decorations adorned other
+      streets, and Andrea del Sarto surpassed them all with a <i>façade</i> to
+      the Duomo, painted in monochrome on wood. His friend Sansovino designed
+      the architecture, and he painted the sculpture and adornments with such
+      effect that the Pope declared no work in marble could have been finer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrea lent his talent to another kind of decorative art. The guild of
+      merchants were desirous of inaugurating a festa for the day of S.
+      Giovanni, and had ten chariots made from the model of the ancient Roman
+      ones, to institute chariot races in the piazza. Andrea painted several of
+      these with historical subjects, but they have long been lost. The chariot
+      races were revived under the Grand Dukes, but not with any success.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V. GOING TO FRANCE. A.D. 1518-1519.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile fate was working Andrea del Sarto on to what might have been the
+      culminating point of his fame, had not his weakness rendered it a blot on
+      his honour; i.e. his journey to France. His fame was rising high; a
+      picture of the <i>Dead Christ surrounded by Angels</i>, weeping over the
+      body they support, having been sent to France, [Footnote: It was engraved
+      by the Venetian, Agostino, before it went to France; the engraving is
+      signed 1516. It did not please Andrea, who never allowed any others to be
+      engraved.] the king was so pleased with it that he wished another work by
+      the same artist. Andrea painted a very beautiful <i>Madonna</i>, for
+      which, however, he only obtained a quarter of the price which the king
+      paid to the merchants. The king was so delighted with it that he sent the
+      artist an invitation to come to Paris in his employ, promising to pay all
+      his expenses. In the Pitti Palace there is a portrait of Andrea and his
+      wife, in which he has commemorated the reception of this letter. He is
+      looking very interested over it, while his wife has the blankest
+      expression possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the summer of 1518 he started with his pupil, Andrea Sguazzella, called
+      Nanoccio. Such a journey was in those days considered as little less than
+      a parting for life. It is plain that Lucrezia's family looked on her as
+      almost a widow, for they made him sign a deed of acknowledgement for the
+      150 florins of her <i>dote</i>. Some authors have taken this document as a
+      proof of their marriage in that year, but it was merely a precaution
+      against loss by her family; the Italian law being that the husband is
+      obliged to render the portion obtained with his wife to her family if she
+      dies without issue, and in case of his own death, the widow is entitled to
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was well received in Paris, and employed immediately on a likeness of
+      the infant Dauphin Henri II., then only a few months old. For this he
+      obtained 300 scudi: and a monthly salary was allowed him. What a mine of
+      gold the French court must have seemed to him after working for years at
+      large frescoes for ten scudi each!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did no less than fifty works of art while there, most of which have
+      been engraved by the best French artists.[Footnote: See <i>Catalogue of
+      Royal Pictures in France</i>, by M. Lepiscié.] The <i>Carità</i> is signed
+      1518, and is in Andrea's best style&mdash;perhaps with a leaning towards
+      Michelangelo. The <i>S. Jerome in Penitence</i>, which he painted for the
+      king's mother, and obtained a large price for, cannot be traced. His life
+      in Paris was a new revelation, and not without its effect on his
+      character, always alive to substantial pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The king and his courtiers frequented his atelier, and delighted to watch
+      him paint, vieing with each other in the richness of their gifts, among
+      which were splendid brocade dresses and beautiful ornaments and jewels, in
+      which he longed to adorn his wife. While he was engaged in painting the <i>S.
+      Jerome</i> for the queen-mother, a letter from Lucrezia aroused his
+      longings for home to the uttermost; she&mdash;the wife who has been
+      branded by the name of faithless&mdash;wrote that she was disconsolate in
+      his absence, and that if he did not soon return he would find her dead
+      with grief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vasari, quoting this exaggerated letter, says in his first edition that
+      she only wanted money to give her friends, but this also he retracts in
+      the second. Whether it expressed her feelings truly or not, the letter had
+      such an effect on Andrea's mind that he decided to return home at any
+      cost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During Andrea's absence the house in Via S. Sebastiano, behind the
+      Annunziata, was being prepared under her superintendence and with his
+      sanction. His scholars had decorated the walls and ceilings with frescoes,
+      and no doubt Lucrezia was as anxious for him to see the new house as he
+      was to adorn her with Parisian brocades and jewellery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Being able to satisfy her ambitious soul, Andrea too readily flung away
+      all his brilliant prospects to return, and willingly take again the yoke
+      of the burden of his wife and her family. He made promises that he would
+      bring her back to Paris with him, and the king in all faith allowed him to
+      depart, confiding to him large sums of money for the purchase of works of
+      art to be sent to France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sguazzella, wiser than his master, preferred to stay in Paris under the
+      patronage of Cardinal de Tournon. He painted a great many works, much in
+      the style of Andrea, but with less excellence. It is possible that some of
+      M. Lepiscié's long list are, in fact, the work of the pupil rather than
+      the master. When Benvenuto Cellini went to France in 1537 he lodged in
+      Sguazzella's house, with his three servants and three horses, at a weekly
+      rate of payment (<i>a tanto la settimana</i>).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But to return to Andrea: this is an episode in his life which we would
+      gladly pass over if it were possible, for it forms the moral blot on a
+      great artistic career.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Returning home he fell once more under the strong will of his wife, but
+      with his principles weakened by the effect of a luxury and prosperity
+      which has always a greater deteriorating effect on a nature such as his
+      than on a finer mind. Bringing grand ideas from the palaces of the French
+      nobles, he not only fell in with Lucrezia's plans for beautifying the new
+      house, but even surpassed her wildest schemes. The staircase was
+      embellished with rich oaken balustrades, the rooms were all frescoed.
+      Cupids hide in the Raphaelesque scrolls on the arches, classic divinities
+      rest on the ceilings, but in the dining room the homely nature of the man
+      who did his own marketing, creeps out. It is a charming room, the windows
+      opening on a garden courtyard, where a vine trellis leads round to what
+      used to be the side door of his studio which has its entrance in another
+      street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The roof is vaulted and covered with exquisite decorative frescoes, but in
+      the lunettes of the two largest arches are the domestic scenes of cooking
+      and laying the cloth, spoken of at page 90. Two or three of the up stairs
+      rooms are very fine, especially the one in which Andrea is said to have
+      died. [Footnote: This description is due to the kindness of the present
+      resident in the house, who kindly showed it to the writer, pointing out
+      all the unrestored portions.] It is probable the furniture matched the
+      style of the rooms, and that much money was spent on carved chairs and <i>cassoni</i>.
+      Certain it is that the King of France's commissions were unfulfilled, and
+      his money misappropriated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrea would have returned to France, but his wife, who had an Italian
+      woman's dread of leaving her own country, put every obstacle in his way,
+      adding entreaties to tears which the uxorious Andrea could not resist. As
+      usual he tried to please her, and she only cared to please herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He fell greatly in the estimation of the King, who was justly angry;
+      albeit the artist salved his own too easy conscience by sending a few of
+      his own paintings to Francis I., one of which, the <i>Sacrifice of Abraham</i>,
+      still remains in France, and another a half length figure of <i>S. John
+      the Baptist</i>. The place of this picture is much disputed; it is said to
+      be at present in the Pitti Palace. Argenville speaks of it among the
+      French pictures as if it had returned subsequently to Florence, while
+      Vasari asserts that it never went there, but was sold to Ottaviano de'
+      Medici. [Footnote: <i>Life of Andrea, del Sarto</i>, vol. in. p. 212.] As
+      Andrea painted no less than five pictures of this subject, of which
+      Argenville mentions that there were two in France, one of which was sold
+      to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, it is probable that the Pitti one is not
+      that painted for Francis I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI. ANDREA AND OTTAVIANO DE' MEDICI. A.D. 1521-1523.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Medici, always patrons of art, did not neglect to enrich their palaces
+      with the works of Andrea del Sarto. Ottaviano de' Medici, a cousin of the
+      reigning branch, was an especial friend of his, from the time that Andrea
+      began the fresco of <i>Caesar receiving tribute of animals</i> in the Hall
+      of Poggio a Cajano. The commission came really from Pope Leo X., who
+      deputed Cardinal Giulio, his cousin, to have the hall of the favourite
+      family villa adorned with frescoes. He in turn handed over the direction
+      to Ottaviano, who was a great amateur of art. It was designed that Andrea
+      del Sarto should cover a third of the Hall, the other two-thirds being
+      given to Pontormo and Francia Bigio. The payment of thirty scudi a month
+      was arranged. In this Andrea has shown his genius in a style entirely new,
+      the composition being crowded, the perspective intricate, the background a
+      building adorned with statues. The subject being allegorical, he has given
+      the reins to his fancy and produced a wonderful assemblage of strange
+      beasts and stranger human beings, Moors, Indians, and dwarfs. There are
+      giraffes, lions, and all kinds of animals, which he had an opportunity of
+      studying in the Serraglio of Florence. The drawing is true and free, the
+      figures and animals full of life, the colouring as usual well harmonised
+      and bright. The Pope died about this time in 1522, and the picture was
+      left to be finished by Allori in 1580.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ottaviano de' Medici, being a great lover of art, was often a patron on
+      his own account; for him Andrea painted the <i>Holy Family</i> now in the
+      Pitti Palace. It is a most charmingly natural group: the Virgin seated on
+      the ground dances the divine child astride on her knee, he is turning his
+      head to the infant S. John who struggles to escape from his mother's arms
+      to get to him. The fresh youth of the Virgin and the saintly age of S.
+      Elizabeth are well contrasted. By the time this picture was finished the
+      siege of Florence had begun, and when the painter took it to Ottaviano,
+      he, having other claims on his means, excused himself from buying it, and
+      recommended Andrea to offer it elsewhere. But the artist replied, "I have
+      laboured for you, and the work shall be always yours." "Sell it and get
+      what you can for it," again replied Ottaviano. Andrea carried the painting
+      home again and would never sell it to any one. A few years after, the
+      siege being over, and the Medici re-instated, he again took the <i>Holy
+      Family</i> to Ottaviano, who was so delighted that he paid him double the
+      price for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ottaviano also bought from Carlo Ginori a <i>Madonna</i> and <i>S. Job</i>,
+      a nude half figure, which were by Andrea's hand. He it was who
+      commissioned him to paint the portrait of Cardinal Giulio, afterwards Pope
+      Clement VII., and it was also at his instance that the imitation Raphael
+      was painted for the Duke of Mantua. The Duke had set his heart on
+      obtaining the picture painted by Raphael representing <i>Leo X. between
+      the Cardinals Giulio and Rossi</i>, and got a promise of it as a gift from
+      Pope Clement. His Holiness wrote to Ottaviano desiring him to have it sent
+      to Mantua. But Ottaviano, appreciating the treasure as much as the Duke of
+      Mantua, determined to secure it to the house of Medici. Under the pretence
+      of having a new frame made he gained time, and meanwhile employing Andrea
+      del Sarto secretly to make an exact copy of it, he sent that to the Duke
+      instead of the original. So well had Andrea imitated the great master's
+      style that every one in Mantua, even Giulio Romano, Raphael's own scholar,
+      was deceived, and it was only some years later that George Vasari divulged
+      the secret and showed Andrea's monogram on the side of the panel beneath
+      the frame. This copy is now at Naples.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fresco at Poggio a Cajano abandoned, Andrea returned to the Scalzo,
+      where he painted the <i>Dance of Herodias, Martyrdom of S. John Baptist,
+      Presentation of the Head, Allegory of Hope</i>, and the <i>Apparition of
+      the Angel to Zacharias</i>. The last was paid for August 22nd, 1523.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About this time there was a great wedding in Florence. Pier Francesco
+      Borgherini espoused Margherita Accajuoli, and Salvi, the bridegroom's
+      father, determined to prepare for his son's bride a wedding chamber which
+      should be famous in all ages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Baccio d' Agnolo had carved wonderful coffers, chairs, and bedsteads in
+      walnut wood. Pontormo painted beautiful cabinets and <i>cassoni</i>, and
+      Granacci, Francesco d' Ubertini Verdi, called Bacchiacca, and Andrea were
+      all employed on the walls. Andrea furnished two pictures; the one tells
+      the story of Joseph in Canaan, the other gives his life in Egypt. The
+      style is that of Piero di Cosimo, but with greater excellence and more
+      dignified figures. The landscape is highly finished and minute, and has a
+      part of the story in every nook of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The centre group, where Joseph leaves his father and mother to go to his
+      brethren, is very dignified, although fine enough to be a miniature. In
+      the second Pharaoh's palace is [Footnote: Reumont (<i>Life of Andrea del
+      Sarto</i>, p. 134) dates these works 1523; the style, which is very much
+      that of Piero di Cosimo, would seem to place them earlier.] represented as
+      a medieval Italian castle, the dresses are all Italian, and as an instance
+      of Andrea's versatility of talent they are very interesting paintings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the siege of Florence, Borgherini was absent, and the picture
+      dealer, Giovanni Battista della Palla, who prowled like a harpy to carry
+      off treasures for the King of France, made an effort to obtain these
+      paintings by inducing the government to confiscate them and sell them to
+      him. But Margherita was equal to the occasion, and meeting the despoiler
+      at her door, she poured out such a torrent of indignation, exhortation,
+      and defiance as drove the broker away crestfallen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the Medici's return della Palla was imprisoned as a traitor, and
+      beheaded at Pisa. The paintings passed into the possession of the Medici,
+      by purchase, during Andrea's life. [Footnote: Biadi, <i>Notizie</i>, &amp;c.,
+      p. 146, note 2.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII. THE PLAGUE AND THE SIEGE. A.D. 1525-1531.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      From 1524 to 1528 the plague desolated Italy, never entirely leaving it.
+      During this time Andrea obtained a commission through Antonio Brancacci,
+      to paint some pictures in the convent of S. Piero at Luco in Mugello,
+      where he retired with his wife and her relations, and his pupil Raffaelo.
+      They spent a very pleasant summer: the nuns made much of his wife and her
+      sisters, and he passed his time in earnest painting. The fruits of his
+      labour are a <i>Pietà</i>, a <i>Visitation</i>, and a <i>Head of Christ</i>&mdash;almost
+      a replica of the one in the SS. Annunziata.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The <i>Pietà</i> is full of expression and feeling, but more realistic and
+      less dignified than that of Fra Bartolommeo, which now hangs on the same
+      wall of the Hall of Apollo at the Pitti.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In colouring also there is a great contrast between the two, that of Fra
+      Bartolommeo being deep, rich, and mellow, while Andrea's is more profuse,
+      diffused, and wanting in depth of shadow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      S. John and the Virgin raise the dead Saviour, the Magdalen and S.
+      Catherine weep at his feet; S. Peter and S. Paul at the back express their
+      grief in the manner natural to their characters. S. Peter, in his vehemence,
+      flings up his arms in a madness of sorrow. S. Paul, with more dignity, is
+      half stupefied with the intensity of woe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If those saints had been left in Fra Bartolommeo's <i>Pietà</i>, the two
+      pictures would have had the very same figures, in each: but how different
+      the composition, feeling, and expression! The Frate's group is a compact
+      triangle; that of Andrea a scattered arrangement. The Magdalen of the
+      Frate is overwhelmed with the very excess of love and grief, all of which
+      is expressed intensely, yet her face is hidden; that of Andrea is a mere
+      woman dressed in flying scarf and flowing garments, but with very little
+      soul in her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The characteristics of the two painters can be well studied in these
+      works, so near together, so similar, and yet so different.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the three works painted at Luco Andrea was paid ninety florins in
+      gold. The <i>Pietà</i>, was bought in later years by the Grand Duke
+      Leopold, and now adorns the Pitti Palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The <i>Visitation</i> was placed in the church of the convent over a
+      presepio. [Footnote: In 1818 it was restored by Luigi Scotti and sold.]
+      Biadi gives the following document:&mdash;"Io Andrea d'Angiolo del Sarto,
+      à di 11 Ottobre 1528 ho ricevuto fiorini 80 d' oro di quei larghi [<i>i.e.</i>
+      of two scudi each] della Tavola dell' Altar grande e di una mezza tavola
+      della Visitazione, da Donna Caterina della Casa Fiorentina, Badessa di
+      Luco." [Footnote: 2 Vol. in. p, 571, note.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrea was paid ten florins for the <i>Head of the Saviour</i>, through
+      his assistant, Raffaello. This receipt would prove either that he went to
+      Luco later than 1524, or that he returned there to finish the works in the
+      year 1528.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On their return to Florence in the autumn Andrea painted a fine work for
+      his friend, Beccuccio da Gambassi, a glass-worker. It is an apotheosis of
+      the <i>Madonna</i>, with four figures beneath&mdash;S. John Baptist, Mary
+      Magdalen, S. Sebastian, and S. Rocco; not S. <i>Onofrio</i>, as Bottari
+      has named it. The predella, now lost, had portraits of the patron and his
+      wife. Crowe and Cavalcaselle speak of six saints in this picture, four
+      standing and two kneeling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This description seems to point more certainly to the Sarzana <i>Madonna</i>,
+      which is now in the Hall of Apollo, in the Pitti Palace. That for
+      Beccuccio is described, with the four above-mentioned saints only, by all
+      the Italian authors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tabernacle, at the corner of the convent, outside the Porta Pinti,
+      Florence, was painted about this time. It is now quite destroyed by age
+      and weather; a good copy by Empoli, exists, however, in the western
+      corridor of the Uffizi. It is a charming <i>Holy Family, with the infant
+      S. John</i>,&mdash;a sweet laughing face. The Madonna is a portrait of
+      Lucrezia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the siege when the convent of the Ingesuate&mdash;at the corner of
+      which it stood&mdash;was razed to the ground, this fresco, although
+      loosened from the wall, was spared by the soldiers, who had not courage to
+      injure it. The Grand Duke Cosimo was anxious to have it brought to
+      Florence, and often came with engineers and architects, but they never
+      hazarded its removal. [Footnote: Bocchi, <i>Bellezze di Firenze</i>, p.
+      482.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duomo of Pisa has five saints painted by Andrea; they originally
+      formed one large picture in five compartments, and were painted for the
+      church of the now suppressed convent of S. Agnes; but in 1618 they were
+      divided into five pictures, and removed to the Duomo, where <i>S.
+      Catherine Martyr</i>, <i>S. Margaret</i>, <i>S. Peter</i>, and <i>S. John
+      the Baptist</i> hang on each side of the altar. <i>S. Agnes</i>, with her
+      lamb by her side, is placed on a pilaster towards the southern door. This
+      and <i>S. Margaret</i> are especially graceful and expressive. There is
+      much of the feeling of Correggio, but with more natural grace and less
+      voluptuousness. The cutting and retouching had injured them greatly, but
+      in 1835 Antonio Garazalli took off the repainting and restored them more
+      delicately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1525 Andrea had a commission to draw cartoons for painting the
+      balustrade of the Ringhiera&mdash;a kind of wide terrace in front of the
+      Palazzo della Signoria, from which speeches were made to the populace. His
+      designs were very beautiful and appropriate, the compartments being
+      emblematical of the different quarters of the city; besides which were
+      allegories of mountains, rivers, and virtues. The designs were left
+      unfinished at his death, and the Ringhiera was never painted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1526-7 he worked at the fresco of the <i>Last Supper</i>, at S. Salvi,
+      which was intended to have been done when he began the four saints there,
+      in 1510, had not some misunderstanding between the rulers of the order
+      prevented their continuation. [Footnote: Vasari's <i>Lives</i>, vol. iii.
+      p. 224.] Even now he worked in a desultory manner, doing it bit by bit,
+      but in the end producing a marvellous work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The refectory is a long vaulted hall, and the frescoed table, with its
+      life-size figures, fills the whole arch of the wall opposite the door.
+      One's natural impulse on entering it is to exclaim, "How life-like!" There
+      is a great and living animation in the figures; the characters of the
+      Apostles are written on their expressive faces. Judas is not placed away
+      alone, as in many renderings of the subject, but is next to Christ, the
+      contrast of the two faces being thus emphasized by proximity. S. Peter,
+      though old, has all the vehemence and intensity of his character. Add to
+      the feeling a brilliancy of colour of which Andrea alone had the secret,
+      for without deep shadows, and keeping up the same intensity of tone
+      throughout, he yet obtained great harmony and full relief where others
+      would have produced a clash and flatness. Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle
+      say with justice, "From the contemplation of the <i>Cena</i>, at Milan, we
+      should say that the painter is high bred; looking at that of S. Salvi,
+      that he is accustomed to lowly company." [Footnote: <i>Hist. of Painting</i>,
+      vol. iii. chap. xvii. p. 574.] But in some subjects a rugged strength is
+      more important than a high refinement, and in the group of humble
+      fishermen who formed the first church this is not out of place. If he
+      could only have spiritualised Christ, nothing would be left to be desired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrea del Sarto was a member of a sacred company called the "Fraternità
+      del Nicchio," for which he painted a standard to be carried in their
+      processions. It is now in the Hall of the Old Masters in the Uffizi, and
+      is a charming group of <i>S. James, with two children dressed in white
+      surplices</i>&mdash;the habit of the company. The saint is caressing one,
+      who kneels at his feet; the other has an open book in his hand. The
+      draperies are especially graceful, and the expressions soft and pleasing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After finishing a portrait of the Intendant of the monks at Vallombrosa,
+      which the said monk afterwards placed in an arbour covered with vines,
+      regardless of the injuries of wind and rain&mdash;Andrea, having some
+      colours still left on his palette, took up a tile and called his wife to
+      sit for her portrait, that all might see how well she had kept her good
+      looks from her youth; but Lucrezia not being inclined to sit, he got a
+      mirror and painted <i>his own portrait</i> on the tile instead. It was one
+      of his later works, and Lucrezia kept it till her death. It is now in the
+      room of portraits in the Uffizi, but much blackened by time; probably also
+      from the tile not having been properly prepared. [Footnote: This portrait
+      is given as a frontispiece.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next year or two were taken up in producing a number of large
+      altar-pieces, and in painting pictures for the dealer, Giovanni Battista
+      della Palla, who was still intent on supplying the King of France with
+      Italian works of art. For him he painted a <i>Sacrifice of Abraham</i>,
+      which Vasari thinks one of his most excellent works. The face of the
+      patriarch is full of faith, and yet self-sacrifice; the nude figure of
+      Isaac, bronzed in the parts which have been exposed to the sun, most
+      tenderly expresses a trembling dread, mingled with trust in his father;
+      the landscape is also very airy and beautiful, and a characteristic group
+      of a servant and the browsing ass is very effective in the background.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He also painted a lovely picture of <i>Charity with three Children</i> for
+      Della Palla. Both these works were done with great care, for he hoped by
+      their means to regain the lost favour of the King of France. It was too
+      late for this, however; and, as it happened, neither of these works
+      reached its destination. The siege of Florence took place about this time
+      (1529); the dealer, Battista della Palla, had his head cut off in his
+      dungeon at Pisa, and all hope of his mediation with Francis I. was at an
+      end. The <i>Charity</i> was sold to Domenico Conti, the painter, after
+      Andrea's death, and thence passed into the hands of the Antinori family.
+      The <i>Sacrifice of Abraham</i> has had more vicissitudes. Filippo Strozzi
+      purchased and gave it to the Marchese del Vasto, who had it in his castle
+      at Ischia many years. Later it was sent from Florence to Modena in
+      exchange for a Correggio, and Augustus II. of Saxony becoming its
+      purchaser, placed it in the Dresden Gallery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This seems to have been a favourite subject with Andrea del Sarto, who
+      repeated it five times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      1. The one done by himself for the King of France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      2. Also in France, having been purchased from the Grand Duke of Tuscany.
+      (See Argenville.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      3. The one mentioned above, done for G. B. della Palla.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      4. A smaller one, painted for Paolo da Terra Rossa; a fine painting, for
+      which the artist asked so small a price that the purchaser was ashamed to
+      pay it. Paolo sent it to Naples.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      5. An unfinished painting of <i>Abraham holding Isaac by the Hand</i>, now
+      in the possession of the Zonadari family, who obtained it from the
+      Peruzzi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the siege, work was found for artists, but of an unpleasant nature.
+      Andrea was commissioned, in 1530, to paint the effigies of some traitors
+      on the palace of the Signoria. He dared not refuse, but remembering that
+      his namesake, Andrea del Castagno, who had been similarly employed, gained
+      the name of "Andrea degli Impiccati," he was anxious that the same name
+      should not attach to himself. Accordingly he had an enclosed platform
+      made, and giving out that his pupil, Bernardino del Buda, was going to
+      paint the effigies, he worked at them himself secretly, till, on being
+      uncovered, they seemed to be real persons writhing on the gibbet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No trace of them remains now, but the studies are in the collection of
+      drawings in the Uffizi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A fine half-length figure of <i>S. Sebastian</i>, for the brotherhood of
+      that name, which had its head-quarters in the street in which Andrea
+      lived, was almost his last work in Florence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The siege was now over, but the influx of soldiers from the camp brought a
+      return of the plague, which awakened great terror in the city. Andrea's
+      mode of life and love of good living did not conduce to his safety; he was
+      taken ill suddenly, and gave himself up for lost. Neither Vasari nor Biadi
+      says he was entirely deserted by his wife; they only hint that she came to
+      his room as little as she could, having a great fear of the plague.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is more than probable that Andrea himself kept her away from him, for
+      his love was always unselfish, and he thought only of her good. However
+      this be, he died, aged forty-two, on the 22nd of January, 1531, and was
+      buried very quietly by the "Brethren of the Scalzo" in the church of the
+      S. Annunziata. His tomb is beneath the pavement of the presbytery, on the
+      left hand. His older biographers seem to think this unostentatious funeral
+      a great slight to his merits, but if there were any doubts as to his
+      illness being the plague, it would only have been a natural precaution to
+      avoid spreading contagion by making his interment quite private.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That Andrea had not wholly neglected his own family is proved by his will,
+      which left his property (after paying back Lucrezia's <i>dot</i> of 100
+      scudi, and the money for the improvement of the new house in Via Crocetta
+      for her and her daughter) to his brother Domenico, with the proviso that
+      after his death half the bequest should be given to Domenico's daughter as
+      <i>dot</i>, the rest to accrue to the hospital of the Innocenti
+      (Foundlings). [Footnote: Ricordanze nel Archivio del E. Spedate degli
+      Innocenti di Firenze. Biadi, <i>Notizie</i>, p. 127.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lucrezia lived to a good old age, being nearly ninety when she died; she
+      seems to have lived a very quiet life, and to have kept Andrea's paintings
+      with great care, except a few only which she sold. The house in Via
+      Crocetta passed many years afterwards into the possession of another
+      painter, Zuccheri, who embellished the studio front with reliefs in stone,
+      representing the paraphernalia of an atelier; but it is Andrea's name
+      which lives in the house, as his memory does in the hearts of the
+      Florentine people, and his works in the cloisters of the Florentine
+      churches. The people of the city always seem to claim Del Sarto as
+      especially their own. He is always <i>nostro pittore</i>, or <i>nostro
+      maestro</i>-and indeed as a master of fresco he never was surpassed. In
+      colouring he was in his way unique; in modelling, original and graceful;
+      while the transparent clearness of his shadows and brilliant blending of
+      tints in the lights render his handling incomparable. A little more
+      refinement and aesthetic feeling would have placed him on a level with the
+      great leaders of the Renaissance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII. SCHOLARS OF ANDREA DEL SARTO.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Andrea's scholars were numerous, though only a few rose to any great
+      eminence. Of these, JACOPO CARRUCCI, "da Pontormo" (born 1494, died 1557),
+      was by far the most talented. Left an orphan at an early age, the charge
+      of his sister devolved on him, and he placed her with a relation while he
+      was pursuing his art training. He studied under a diversity of masters,
+      including Leonardo da Vinci, Albertinelli, Piero di Cosimo; and finally,
+      in 1512, he entered Andrea del Sarto's school, but did not stay long there
+      either. Some say Andrea was jealous of his success; he, however, had
+      generosity enough to praise and acknowledge his talent, and to show his
+      appreciation by giving him important work to do in his own studio.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pontormo did the predella to Andrea's altar-piece of the <i>Annunciation</i>
+      for the convent of S. Gallo. His hand is to be seen also in several of his
+      master's works. He drew public attention first by painting two figures of
+      <i>Faith</i> and <i>Charity</i> on the escutcheon of the Medici for Andrea
+      di Cosimo, who had obtained the commission, but did not feel equal to
+      executing it. Michelangelo, on seeing these figures, prophesied great
+      things for the youth, who was at that time only nineteen years of age.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The people of Pontormo, his native town, were so proud of him, that they
+      sent for him to emblazon the arms of Pope Leo over the gate of their city.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was next employed by one of the festal companies of the age, called the
+      Company of the Diamond, to design cars, banners, and costumes for a
+      triumphal procession in honour of Leo X.'s elevation to the papal chair;
+      and he organised a very suggestive array of the ages of man, illustrated
+      historically. He decorated the Papal Hall for Leo X.'s entrance, and later
+      began to be employed on more serious and lasting works.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some good frescoes of his existed in the convent of Santa Caterina, but
+      were destroyed when the building was reconstructed in 1688.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A very charming fresco of the <i>Visitation</i> still exists in the court
+      of the SS. Annunziata. It shows him as a good pure colourist, the flesh
+      tints being especially tender; the composition is lively, full, and
+      effective.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1518 he painted a fine altar-piece for the church of S. Michele
+      Visdomini, Florence, by commission of Francesco Pucci. The <i>Madonna</i>,
+      seated, is showing the Child Jesus to S. Joseph, whose face is most
+      expressive and full of smiling admiration. S. John Baptist stands near, at
+      the sides are S. John Evangelist, S. James, and S. Francis, the latter
+      kneeling in ecstatic admiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In some cases he was placed in direct competition with his master, Andrea
+      del Sarto, being employed by Borgherini to paint the coffers and cabinets
+      in the same room for which Andrea did the <i>History of Joseph</i>; and
+      again later at Poggio a Cajano, where the ends of the great hall were
+      assigned to him to paint, Andrea and Francia Bigio taking the larger walls
+      at the sides. On one end he designed an allegory of <i>Vertumnus</i>, with
+      his husbandmen around him busy with their labours, and on the other <i>Pomona,
+      Diana, &amp;c</i>. Perhaps in these last he has carried his imitation of
+      Andrea del Sarto rather too far in the matter of draperies, which are too
+      profuse and studied. Indeed the whole works are overdone; he was so
+      anxious to rival his master that he forced his invention, altering and
+      labouring till all spontaneity was taken out of his work. Some of his
+      frescoes were in the cloister of the Certosa, but they are not fair
+      specimens of his best style, as they were done when the Florentine artists
+      were smitten with the mania of imitating Albrecht Dürer, and in these he
+      has entirely followed the harder manner of that artist without obtaining
+      his strength. The frescoes are all scenes from the <i>Life of Christ</i>,
+      and he spent several years over them; after which he painted an
+      altar-piece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Giovanni Battista della Palla commissioned him to paint a picture to be
+      sent to the King of France, and Pontormo returning wisely to his natural
+      style, painted one of his masterpieces, the <i>Resurrection of Lazarus</i>.
+      The Pitti Palace possesses a curious specimen of his work, the 11,000
+      martyrs crucified in a wood in the persecution under the Emperor
+      Diocletian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He rose to renown as a portrait painter, but lost patronage in later year
+      by his capricious behaviour, refusing to work except for whom and when he
+      pleased. In company with his favourite pupil, Bronzino, he did the
+      frescoes in the Loggie of the Medici villa at Careggi; one Loggia was soon
+      completed, to the great delight of the Duke, but Jacopo shut himself up in
+      the second and allowed no one to see what he was doing for five years;
+      when at length he uncovered the frescoes general disappointment was the
+      result. He pursued much the same line of conduct in the frescoes of the
+      roof of the Medici Chapel in San Lorenzo. He kept the chapel closed with
+      walls and planks for eleven years, no one seeing his progress except some
+      young men who removed one of the rosettes from the ceiling to peep in on
+      him, but he discovered their plan, and closed the holes more assiduously
+      than ever. The composition is as confused as it is diffusive; he tried to
+      embody the whole teaching of the Bible, but becoming overwhelmed with the
+      vastness of his subject, fell short even of the excellence of his own
+      previous works. He died before this work was completed, of hydropsy, and
+      was buried in the Servite Church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GIORGIO VASARI, better known as the chronicler of the works of other
+      artists than for the excellence of his own, was born at Arezzo, 1512&mdash;died
+      at Florence, 1574. His father was a painter, and the family was connected
+      by ties of relationship with Luca Signorelli of Cortona. Among the many
+      masters under whom he studied was Andrea del Sarto. He did not remain long
+      under his tuition, having contrived to offend Lucrezia in some way. He
+      painted a great many frescoes at Arezzo, where he lived in his youth with
+      his paternal uncle Don Antonio. Don Miniato Pitti, prior of the convent of
+      Monte Oliveti, near Siena, next employed him to adorn the portico of his
+      church. He had the good fortune to attract the notice of Cardinal Ippolito
+      de' Medici, who took him to Rome in his suite, where he gained much
+      advantage by the study of the works of the great masters there. The Medici
+      family, especially Andrea del Sarto's patron, Ottaviano, were his constant
+      friends: and their palaces are profusely decorated by him. The Riccardi
+      Palace has a room with fresco scenes from the life of Cæsar. While
+      painting these Duke Alessandro gave him a salary of six crowns a month
+      with a place at his table, and board for his servant, &amp;c. The palace
+      has several oil paintings by Vasari, amongst which are portraits of the
+      Duke and his sister. After the death of Duke Alessandro and Ottaviano he
+      wandered from city to city, painting so energetically that there are few
+      of the principal towns which do not possess some of his works, especially
+      Naples, Pisa, Bologna, and Arezzo. The Palazzo San Giorgio of the Farnese
+      family, in Rome, has a large hall richly frescoed by Vasari, but the best
+      of his works are to be seen on the walls of the great hall of the Palazzo
+      Vecchio in Florence, where he has illustrated the battles of the
+      Florentines, and in several other rooms of the same palace; he having
+      continued all the later years of his life in the service of Duke Cosimo,
+      by whom the palace was restored and decorated. His works are too numerous
+      and not sufficiently important to catalogue or describe, his composition
+      is overcrowded and wanting in perspective. There is generally a
+      superabundance of flesh; muscular limbs in all attitudes form a great part
+      of his pictures, but as the flesh tints he used were wanting in mellowness
+      and shadow, and have turned pink with age, they compare disadvantageously
+      with those of the more solid masters who preceded him. After all, Vasari's
+      name and fame rest principally on the labours of his pen, not those of his
+      brush. His "<i>Lives of the Painters,</i>" although not a model of
+      precision in facts or chronology, is nevertheless the mine from which all
+      subsequent art historians quarry to obtain their information.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the most valuable books of the day is probably the new edition of
+      Vasari with corrections and notes taken from the archives by Signer
+      Gaetano Milanesi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FRANCESCO ROSSI, DE' SALVIATI (born at Florence, 1510&mdash;died at Borne,
+      1563) was a great friend of Vasari; his real name was Rossi, his father
+      being a weaver of velvets, but he obtained the name of Salviati from being
+      the protégé of the Cardinal of that name. His first master was Raffaello
+      del Brescia, but in 1529 he, with his friend Nannoccio, entered the school
+      of Andrea del Sarto, with whom they stayed during the siege. Becoming
+      known by some paintings done for the friars of the Badia, Cardinal
+      Salviati took him into his house, gave him a stipend of four crowns a
+      month, and an apartment at the Borgo Vecchio, he painting any works the
+      Cardinal wished. Francesco was not idle, a great number of frescoes,
+      altar-pieces, and portraits, &amp;c., &amp;c., testifying to his industry.
+      In his later years he was employed with his friend Vasari in the Palazzo
+      Vecchio, where he painted the frescoes in the smaller Hall of Audience.
+      These are principally scenes from the <i>Life of Camillus</i>. The story
+      of the schoolmaster of Falerii is very spirited, and the <i>Triumph of
+      Camillus</i> varied and pleasing in colouring. Although melancholy and
+      suspicious, often making enemies and losing patronage by
+      misunderstandings, Rossi and Vasari were always faithful to their first
+      boyish friendship, often working together, but never with any spirit of
+      rivalry. Salviati's style was bold and spirited; he was rich in invention,
+      but perhaps a little wild in the matter of draperies and bizarre costumes.
+      His colouring is more pleasing than that of Vasari, but is diffusive and
+      wanting in depth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DOMENICO CONTI never became famous, but in spite of want of genius, he was
+      Andrea's favourite pupil. All his master's designs and cartoons came into
+      his possession at Andrea's death, but he was unfortunately robbed of them
+      soon afterwards. The inscription to Andrea del Sarto which once existed in
+      the church of SS. Annunziata was put up by Conti.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      JACOPO DEL CONTE (1510-1598), who in Vasari's time lived in Rome, is
+      chiefly noted for his likenesses of several pontiffs and personages of the
+      Papal Court. There are a few altar-pieces by him in Rome, and a <i>Deposition</i>
+      in the church of the Misericordia in Florence, but he was almost
+      exclusively a portrait painter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ANDREA SGUAZZELLA, called NANNOCCIO, remained in France after having
+      accompanied Andrea del Sarto thither. Cardinal Tournon took him under his
+      patronage, and he painted a large number of works in the style of Andrea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      JACOPO, called JACONE, was another of Andrea's favourite disciples. His
+      frescoes, of which some existed till of late years on the façade of the
+      Palazzo Buondelmonte, in Florence, were much in Del Sarto's manner. He
+      assisted his master in a great many of his works, while of his independent
+      paintings many were sent to France; no doubt some of these, as well as
+      Sguazzella's, figure under the master's name in that list of fifty works
+      given by Argenville. He was too idle and fond of pleasure to rise to
+      eminence, though he did some good frescoes in the Palazzo Capponi at
+      Florence, and in the Capponi Villa at Montici, and assisted Jacopo da
+      Pontormo in the Hall of the Medici villa at Careggi. He died in 1553, in
+      great poverty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PIER FRANCESCO DI JACOPO DI SANDRO was said to have had some talent. He
+      and Domenico Conti were employed among others in decorating the court of
+      the Palazzo Vecchio on the occasion of Cosimo de' Medici's marriage with
+      Leonora di Toledo. There are some altar-pieces of his in the church of
+      Santo Spirito, Florence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SOLOSMEO, RAFFAELLO, and BERNARDINO DEL BUDA were three <i>garzoni</i> in
+      Andrea's studio. They were employed in the subordinate work and manual
+      labour, but were not trained as artists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_BIBL" id="link2H_BIBL"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BIBLIOGRAPHY
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  1886. G. GRUYER. Fra Bartolommeo della Porta and M. Albertinelli.
+  1903. F. KNAPP. Fra Bartolommeo della Porta.
+  1922. H. GABLENTZ. Fra Bartolommeo.
+  1902. M. E. JAMES. Fra Bartolommeo.
+  1899. H. GUINNESS. Andrea del Sarto. (The Great Masters Series.)
+  1905. MASTERPIECES OF ANDREA DEL SARTO. (Gowan's Art Books.)
+  1928. F. KNAPP. Andrea del Sarto.
+  1864-66. CROWE AND CAVALCASELLE. A New History of Painting in Italy
+  from the 2nd to the 16th Century. Three Volumes.
+</pre>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea D'Agnolo, by
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+Project Gutenberg's Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea D'Agnolo, by Leader Scott
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea D'Agnolo
+
+Author: Leader Scott
+
+Editor: Horace Shipp
+        Flora Kendrick
+
+
+Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7222]
+This file was first posted on March 27, 2003
+Last Updated: May 7, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRA BARTOLOMMEO AND ANDREA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Michelle Shephard, Tiffany Vergon, Charles
+Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+FRA BARTOLOMMEO and ANDREA D'AGNOLO
+
+
+By Leader Scott
+
+Author Of "A Nook In The Apennines"
+
+
+Re-Edited By Horace Shipp and Flora Kendrick, A.R.B.S.
+
+
+
+
+_The reproductions in this series are from official photographs of the
+National Collections, or from photographs by Messrs. Andersen, Alinari
+or Braun._
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael: the three great names of the noblest
+period of the Renaissance take our minds from the host of fine artists
+who worked alongside them. Nevertheless beside these giants a whole
+host of exquisite artists have place, and not least among them the
+three painters with whom Mr. Leader Scott has dealt in these pages. Fra
+Bartolommeo linking up with the religious art of the preceding period,
+with that of Masaccio, of Piero de Cosimo, his senior student in the
+studio of Cosimo Roselli, and at last with that of the definitely
+"modern" painters of the Renaissance, Raphael, Leonardo and Michelangelo
+himself, is a transition painter in this supreme period. Technique and
+the work of hand and brain are rapidly taking the place of inspiration
+and the desire to convey a message. The aesthetic sensation is becoming
+an end in itself. The scientific painters, perfecting their studies of
+anatomy and of perspective, having a conscious mastery over their tools
+and their mediums, are taking the place of such men as Fra Angelico.
+
+As a painter at this end of a period of transition--a painter whose
+spiritual leanings would undoubtedly have been with the earlier men, but
+whose period was too strong for him--Fra Bartolommeo is of particular
+interest; and Albertinelli, for all the fiery surface difference of his
+outlook is too closely bound by the ties of his friendship for the Frate
+to have any other viewpoint.
+
+Andrea del Sarto presents yet another phenomenon: that of the artist
+endowed with all the powers of craftsmanship yet serving an end
+neither basically spiritual nor basically aesthetic, but definitely
+professional. We have George Vasari's word for it; and Vasari's blame
+upon the extravagant and too-well-beloved Lucrezia. To-day we are so
+accustomed to the idea of the professional attitude to art that we can
+accept it in Andrea without concern. Not that other and earlier artists
+were unconcerned with the aspect of payments. The history of Italian
+art is full of quarrels and bickerings about prices, the calling in of
+referees to decide between patron and painter, demands and refusals
+of payment. Even the unworldly Fra Bartolommeo was the centre of such
+quarrels, and although his vow of poverty forbade him to receive money
+for his work, the order to which he belonged stood out firmly for the
+_scudi_ which the Frate's pictures brought them. In justice to Andrea it
+must be added that this was not the only motive for his activities;
+it was not without cause that the men of his time called him "_senza
+errori_," the faultless painter; and the production of a vast quantity
+of his work rather than good prices for individual pictures made his art
+pay to the extent it did. A pot-boiler in masterpieces, his works have
+place in every gallery of importance, and he himself stands very close
+to the three greatest; men of the Renaissance.
+
+Both Fra Bartolommeo and Albertinelli are little known in this country.
+Practically nothing has been written about them and very few of their
+works are in either public galleries or private collections. It is in
+Italy, of course, that one must study their originals, although the
+great collections usually include one or two. Most interesting from
+the viewpoint of the study of art is the evolution of the work of the
+artist-monk as he came under the influence of the more dramatic modern
+and frankly sensational work of Raphael, of the Venetians and of
+Michelangelo. In this case (many will say in that of the art of
+the world) this tendency detracted rather than helped the work. The
+draperies, the dramatic poses, the artistic sensation arrests the mind
+at the surface of the picture. It is indeed strange that this devout
+churchman should have succumbed to the temptation, and there are moments
+when one suspects that his somewhat spectacular pietism disguised the
+spirit of one whose mind had little to do with the mysticism of the
+mediaeval church. Or perhaps it was that the strange friendship between
+him and Albertinelli, the man of the cloister and the man of the world,
+effected some alchemy in the mind of each. The story of that lifelong
+friendship, strong enough to overcome the difficulties of a definite
+partnership between the strict life of the monastery and the busy life
+of the _bottega_, is one of the most fascinating in art history.
+
+Mr. Leader Scott has in all three lives the opportunity for fascinating
+studies, and his book presents them to us with much of the flavour of
+the period in which they lived. Perhaps to-day we should incline to
+modify his acceptance of the Vasari attitude to Lucrezia, especially
+since he himself tends to withdraw the charges against her, but leaves
+her as the villainess of the piece upon very little evidence. The
+inclusion of a chapter upon Ghirlandajo, treated merely as a follower
+of Fra Bartolommeo, scarcely does justice in modern eyes to this fine
+artist, whose own day and generation did him such honour and paid him
+so well. But the author's general conclusions as to the place in art
+and the significance of the lives of the three painters with whom he
+is chiefly concerned remains unchallenged, and we have in the volume a
+necessary study to place alongside those of Leonardo, of Michelangelo
+and of Raphael for an understanding of the culmination of the
+Renaissance in Italy.
+
+                                               HORACE SHIPP.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+FRA BARTOLOMMEO.
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+    I. THOUGHTS ON THE RENAISSANCE
+   II. THE "BOTTEGA" OF COSIMO ROSELLI. A.D. 1475-1486
+  III. THE GARDEN AND THE CLOISTER. A.D. 1487-1495
+   IV. SAN MARCO. A.D. 1496-1500
+    V. FRA BARTOLOMMEO IN THE CONVENT. A.D. 1504-1509
+   VI. ALBERTINELLI IN THE WORLD. A.D. 1501-1510
+  VII. CONVENT PARTNERSHIP. A.D. 1510-1513
+ VIII. CLOSE OF LIFE. A.D. 1514-1517
+   IX. PART I.--SCHOLARS OF FRA BARTOLOMMEO
+       PART II.--SCHOLARS OF MARIOTTO ALBERTINELLI
+    X. RIDOLFO GHIRLANDAJO
+
+
+ANDREA DEL SARTO.
+
+
+CHAPTER    I. YOUTH AND EARLY WORKS. A.D. 1487-1511
+   II. THE SERVITE CLOISTER. A.D. 1511-1512
+  III. SOCIAL LIFE AND MARRIAGE. A.D. 1511-1516
+   IV. WORKS IN FLORENCE. A.D. 1511-1515
+    V. GOING TO FRANCE. A.D. 1518-1519
+   VI. ANDREA AND OTTAVIANO DE' MEDICI. A.D. 1521-1523
+  VII. THE PLAGUE AND THE SIEGE. A.D. 1525-1531
+ VIII. SCHOLARS OF ANDREA DEL SARTO
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+ADORATION. By BARTOLOMMEO PROCESSION TO CALVARY. By GHIRLANDAIO A
+SCULPTOR. By ANDREA DEL SARTO MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SS. JOHN AND
+ELIZABETH. By ANDREA DEL SARTO THE HOLY FAMILY. By BARTOLOMMEO THE
+SAVIOUR. By ALBERTINELLI VIRGIN AND CHILD. By ANDREA DEL SARTO ECCE
+HOMO. By BARTOLOMMEO
+
+
+
+
+FRA BARTOLOMMEO.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THOUGHTS ON THE RENAISSANCE.
+
+
+It seems to be a law of nature that progress, as well as time, should be
+marked by periods of alternate light and darkness--day and night.
+
+This law is nowhere more apparent than in the history of Art. Three
+times has the world been illuminated by the full brilliance of Art, and
+three times has a corresponding period of darkness ensued.
+
+The first day dawned in Egypt and Assyria, and its works lie buried in
+the tombs of prehistoric Pharaohs and Ninevite kings. The second day
+the sun rose on the shores of many-isled Greece, and shed its rays over
+Etruria and Rome, and ere it set, temples and palaces were flooded with
+beauty. The gods had taken human form, and were come to dwell with men.
+
+The third day arising in Italy, lit up the whole western world with the
+glow of colour and fervour, and its fading rays light us yet.
+
+The first period was that of mythic art; the world like a child
+wondering at all around tried to express in myths the truths it could
+not comprehend.
+
+The second was pagan art which satisfies itself that in expressing the
+perfection of humanity, it unfolds divinity. The third era of Christian
+art, conscious that the divine lies beyond the human, fails in aspiring
+to express infinitude.
+
+Tracing one of these periods from its rise, how truly this similitude
+of the dawn of day is carried out. See at the first streak of light
+how dim, stiff, and soulless all things appear! Trees and objects bear
+precisely the relation to their own appearance in broad daylight as the
+wooden Madonnas of the Byzantine school do to those of Raphael.
+
+Next, when the sun--the true light--first appears, how it bathes the sea
+and the hills in an ethereal glory not their own! What fair liquid tints
+of blue, and rose, and glorious gold! This period which, in art, began
+with Giotto and ended with Botticelli, culminated in Fra Angelico, who
+flooded the world of painting with a heavenly spiritualism not material,
+and gave his dreams of heaven the colours of the first pure rays of
+sunshine.
+
+But as the sun rises, nature takes her real tints gradually. We see
+every thing in its own colour; the gold and the rose has faded away with
+the truer light, and a stern realism takes its place. The human form
+must be expressed, in all its solidity and truth, not only in its
+outward semblance, but the hidden soul must be seen through the veil of
+flesh. And in this lies the reason of the decline; only to a few great
+masters it was given to reveal spirituality in humanity--the others
+could only emulate form and colour, and failed.
+
+It is impossible to contemplate art apart from religion; as truly as the
+celestial sun is the revealer of form, so surely is the heavenly light
+of religion the first inspirer of art.
+
+Where would the Egyptian, Assyrian, and Etruscan paintings and
+sculptures have been but for the veneration of the mystic gods of the
+dead, which both prompted and preserved them?
+
+What would Greek sculpture have been without the deified
+personifications of the mysterious powers of nature which inspired
+it? and it is the fact of the pagan religion being both sensuous and
+realistic which explains the perfection of Greek art. The highest ideal
+being so low as not to soar beyond the greatest perfection of humanity,
+was thus within the grasp of the artist to express. Given a manly figure
+with the fullest development of strength; a female one showing the
+greatest perfection of form; and a noble man whose features express
+dignity and mental power;--the ideal of a Hercules, a Venus, and a
+Jupiter is fully expressed, and the pagan mind satisfied. The spirit
+of admirers was moved more by beauty of form than by its hidden
+significance. In the great Venus, one recognises the woman before
+feeling the goddess.
+
+As with their sculpture, without doubt it was also with painting. Mr.
+Symonds, in his _Renaissance of the Fine Arts_, speaks of the Greek
+revival as entirely an age of sculpture; but the solitary glance into
+the more perishable art of painting among the Greeks, to be seen at
+Cortona, reveals the exquisite perfection to which this branch was also
+brought. It is a painting in encaustic, and has been used as a door
+for his oven by the contadino who dug it up--yet it remains a marvel
+of genius. The subject is a female head--a muse, or perhaps only a
+portrait; the delicacy and mellowness of the flesh tints equal those of
+Raphael or Leonardo, and a lock of hair lying across her breast is so
+exquisitely painted that it seems to move with her breath. The features
+are of the large-eyed regular Greek type, womanly dignity is in every
+line, but it is an essentially pagan face--the Christian soul has never
+dawned in those eyes! With this before us, we cannot doubt that Greek
+art found its expression as much in colour as in form and that the same
+religion inspired both.
+
+In an equal degree Renaissance Art has its roots in Christianity; but
+the religion is deeper and greater, and has left art behind.
+
+The early Christians must have felt this when they expressed everything
+in symbols, for these are merely suggestive, and allow the imagination
+full play around and beyond them; they are mere stepping-stones to the
+ideal which exists but is as yet inexpressible.
+
+"Myths and symbols always mark the dawn of a religion, incarnation and
+realism its full growth." So after a time when the first vague wonder
+and ecstasy are over, symbols no longer content people; they want to
+bring religion home to them in a more tangible form, to humanize it,
+in fact. From this want it arises that nature next to religion inspires
+art, and finally takes its place. For it follows as a matter of course
+that as art is a realistic interpreter of the spiritual, so it is more
+easy to follow nature than spirituality, nature being the outward or
+realistic expression of the mind of God.
+
+It was a saying of Buffalmacco, who was _not_ one of the most devout
+painters of the fourteenth century, "Do not let us think of anything but
+to cover our walls with saints, and out of disrespect to the demons to
+make men more devout." And Savonarola, though he has been accused
+of being one of the causes of the decline, thus upheld the sacred
+influences of art; when he exclaimed in one of his fervent bursts of
+eloquence, "You see that Saint there in the Church and say, 'I will live
+a good life and be like him.'" If these were the feelings of the least
+devout and the religious fanatic, how hallowed must the influences of
+Christian painting have been to the intermediate ranks. Mr. Symonds
+beautifully expresses the tendency of that time: "The eyes of the
+worshipper should no longer have a mere stock or stone to contemplate;
+his imagination should be helped by the dogmatic presentation of the
+scenes of sacred history, and his devotion quickened by lively images
+of the passion of our Lord.... The body and soul moreover should be
+reconciled, and God's likeness should be once more acknowledged in the
+features and limbs of men." [Footnote: Symonds' _Renaissance of the Fine
+Arts_, chap. i. p. 11.]
+
+The school of Giotto was the first to feel this need of the soul. He,
+taking his ideas from nature, clothed the soul in a thin veil; the
+Italians call his school that of poetic art; it reached sentiment and
+poetry, but did not pass them. Yet the thirteenth century was sublime
+for the expression of the idea; one only has to study the intense
+meaning in the works of Giotto, and Orcagna, Duccio, and the Lorenzetti
+of Siena to perceive this. The fourteenth century, on the contrary,
+rendered itself glorious for manifestation of form. "Artists thought the
+veil of ideality a poor thing, and wished to give the solidity of the
+body to the soul; they stole every secret from nature; the senses were
+content, but not sentiment." [Footnote: _Purismo nell' Arte_, da Cesare
+Guasti.]
+
+The artists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, of whom we have
+to speak, blended the two schools, and became perfection as far as
+they went. Michelangelo drew more from the vigorous thirteenth-century
+masters, and Raphael from the more sensuous followers of Masaccio and
+Lippi. The former tried to put the Christian soul into his works, but
+its infinite depth was unattainable. As his many unfinished works prove,
+he always felt some great overwhelming meaning in his inmost soul,
+which all his passionate artistic yearnings were inadequate to express.
+Raphael tried to bring realism into religion through painting, and
+to give us the scenes of our Lord's and the Apostles' lives in such a
+humanized aspect, that we should feel ourselves of his nature. But the
+incarnation of religion in art defeated its own ends; sensuousness was
+introduced in place of the calm, unearthly spirituality of the earlier
+masters. Compare the cartoon of S. Paul preaching at Athens, in which
+he has all the majesty of a Caesar in the Forum, with the lowly spirit
+of the Apostle's life! In truth, Raphael failed to approach nearer
+to sublimity than Fra Angelico, with all his faulty drawing but pure
+spirit.
+
+After him, artists loved form and colour for themselves rather than for
+the spiritual meaning. Miss Owen [Footnote: _Art Schools of Medieval
+Christendom_, edited by Ruskin.] accuses Raphael of having rendered Art
+pagan, but this seems blaming him for the weakness of his followers, who
+took for their type his works rather than his ideal. The causes of the
+decline were many, and are not centred in one man. As long as Religion
+slumbered in monasticism and dogma, Art seizing on the human parts, such
+as the maternity of the Madonna, the personifications of saints who had
+lived in the world, was its adequate exponent. The religion awakened by
+the aesthetic S. Francis, who loved all kinds of beauty, was of the kind
+to be fed by pictures. But when Savonarola had aroused the fervour of
+the nation to its highest point, when beauty was nothing, the world
+nothing, in comparison to the infinity of God;--then art, finding itself
+powerless to express this overwhelming infinity, fell back on more
+earthly founts of inspiration, the classics and the poets.
+
+Lorenzo de' Medici and Pope Nicholas V. had fully as much to do with the
+decline as Savonarola. The Pope in Rome, and Lorenzo in Florence, led
+art to the verge of paganism; Savonarola would have kept it on the
+confines of purism; it was divided and fell, passing through the various
+steps of decadence, the mannerists and the eclectics, to rise again
+in this nineteenth century with what is after all its true aim, the
+interpretation of nature, and the illustration of the poetry of a
+nation.
+
+But with the decadence we have happily nothing to do; the artists of
+whom we speak first, Fra Bartolommeo and Albertinelli, belong to the
+culmination of art on its rising side, while Andrea del Sarto stands as
+near to the greatest artists on the other side, and is the last of the
+group before the decline. On Fra Bartolommeo the spirituality of Fra
+Angelico still lingered, while the perfection of Raphael illumined him.
+Andrea del Sarto, on the other side, had gathered into his hands
+the gleams of genius from all the great artists who were his elder
+contemporaries, and so blending them as to form seemingly a style of
+his own, distinct from any, has left on our walls and in our galleries
+hundreds of masterpieces of colour, as gay and varied as the tints the
+orientals weave into their wondrous fabrics.
+
+It might be said with truth that Fra Bartolommeo painted for the soul,
+and Andrea del Sarto for the eye.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE "BOTTEGA" OF COSIMO ROSELLI. A.D. 1475-1486.
+
+
+Amongst the thousand arteries in which the life blood of the Renaissance
+coursed in all its fulness, none were so busy or so important as the
+"botteghe" of the artists. In these the genius of the great masters,
+the Pleiades of stars at the culmination of art in Florence, was either
+tenderly nursed, or sharply pruned into vigour by struggling against
+discouragement and envy. In these the spirit of awakened devotion found
+an outlet, in altarpieces and designs for church frescoes which were
+to influence thousands. Here the spirit of poetry, brooding in the
+mysterious lines of Dante, or echoing from past ages in the myths of the
+Greeks, took form and glowed on the walls in mighty cartoons to be
+made imperishable in fresco. Here the spirit of luxury was satisfied
+by beautiful designs for ornaments, dress stuffs, tapestries, vases
+and "cassoni," &c., which brought beauty into every life, and made each
+house a poem. The soul, the mind, and the body, could alike be supplied
+at those fountains of the beautiful, the artshops or schools.
+
+Whilst Michelangelo as a youth was drawing from the cartoons of the
+Sassetti chapel in the school of Domenico Ghirlandajo, Cosimo Roselli
+was just receiving as a pupil a boy only a little behind him in genius.
+A small, delicate-faced, spiritual-eyed boy of nine years, known as
+Baccio della Porta, who came with a roll of drawings under his arm and
+high hopes in his soul, no doubt trotting along manfully beside Cosimo's
+old friend, Benedetto da Majano, the sculptor, who had recommended his
+being placed in the studio.
+
+By the table given in the note [Footnote: Pietro, a Genoese, came in
+1400 to the parish of S. Michele, at Montecuccioli in Mugello; he was
+a peasant, and had a son Jacopo, who was father of Paolo, the muleteer;
+and three other sons, Bartolo, Giusto, and Jacopo, who had a _podere_
+at Soffignano, near Prato. Paolo married first Bartolommea, daughter of
+Zanobi di Gallone, by whom he had a son, Bartolommeo, known as Baccio
+della Porta, born 1475. The first wife dying, Paolo married Andrea di
+Michaele di Cenni, who had four sons, Piero, Domenico, Michele,
+and Francesco; only Piero lived to grow up, and he became a priest.
+[_Favoured by Sig. Milanesi._]] it will be seen that Baccio was the son
+of Paolo, a muleteer, which no doubt was a profitable trade in those
+days when the country roads were mere mule-tracks, and the traffic
+between different towns was carried on almost entirely by horses and
+mulepacks. There is some doubt as to the place of Baccio's birth, which
+occurred in 1475. Vasari gives it as Savignano near Prato; Crowe and
+Cavalcaselle [Footnote: Vol. iii. chap. xiii. p. 427.] assert it was
+Suffignano, near Florence, where they say Paolo's brothers, Jacopo and
+Giusto, were contadini or peasants.
+
+But on consulting the post-office authorities we find no place called
+Suffignano near Florence; it must therefore have been a village near
+Prato called Soffignano, which from similarity of sound Vasari confused
+with the larger place, Savignano. This is the more probable, for Rosini
+asserts that "Benedetto da Majano, _who had bought a podere near Prato_,
+knew him and took him into his affections, and by his means placed him
+with Cosimo." [Footnote: Rosini, _Storia della Pittura_, chap. xvii. p.
+47.]
+
+It is certainly probable that Paolo's wife lived with his family during
+his wanderings, because it is the true Italian custom, and Baccio was
+in that case born in his uncle's house; for it is not till 1480 that
+we find Paolo retired from trade and set up in a house of his own in
+Florence at the gate of S. Pier Gattolini, now the Porta Romana.
+
+The friendship begun at Prato must have been continued in Florence,
+for in 1480 Paolo not only owned that house at the gate of S. Pier
+Gattolini, but was the proud possessor of a podere at Brozzi, which
+yielded six barrels of wine. He is a merciful man too, for among his
+possessions are two mules _disutili e vecchi_ (old and useless). At this
+time Baccio was six years old, and his three stepbrothers quite babies.
+[Footnote: Archives of Florence, Portate al Castato, 1480-1.] Paolo, as
+well as his mules, had earned his repose, being certainly old, if not
+useless, and was anxious for his little sons to be placed out in the
+world as early as possible. Thus it came that in 1484 Baccio was taken
+away from his brothers, who played under the shadow of the old gateway,
+and was put to do the drudgery of the apprenticeship to art. He had to
+grind colours for Cosimo--who, as we know, used a great deal of colour,
+having dazzled the eyes of the Pope with the brilliancy of his blue and
+gold in the Sistine Chapel some years before--he had to sweep out the
+studio, no doubt assisted by Mariotto Albertinelli, a boy of his own
+age, and to run errands, carrying designs for inspection to expectant
+brides who wanted the chests painted to hold their wedding clothes, or
+doing the messenger between his master and the nuns of S. Ambrogio, who
+paid Cosimo their gold florins by the hand of the boy in 1484 and 1485.
+[Footnote: Note to Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. iii. chap. xiii. p.
+429.]
+
+Whether his age made him a more acceptable means of communication with
+the nuns, or whether Pier di Cosimo, the elder pupil, already displayed
+his hatred of womankind, I know not; perhaps the boy already showed that
+innate devotion and especial fitness for sanctity which marks his entire
+art career. Truly everything in his youthful life combined to lead his
+thoughts to higher things. The first fresco at which he assisted was in
+this solemn cloister of St. Ambrogio, and the subject the _Miracle of
+the Sacrament_; the saintly air of the place, the calm faces of the
+white-hooded nuns, must all have had an influence in inspiring his
+youthful mind with the spirit of devotion.
+
+Baccio's fellow-students were not many, but they formed an interesting
+group. Pier di Cosimo was the head man, and eldest of all; with such
+ties was he bound to his master and godfather, that he was known better
+as Cosimo's Peter than by his own patronymic of Chimenti. He was at
+this time twenty-two years of age, his registry in the Florentine Guild
+proves his birth in 1462, as the son of Lorenzo, son of Piero, son of
+Antonio, Chimenti.
+
+Being the eldest of five brothers, it is difficult to conceive how a
+member of a large family grew up developing such eccentricities as are
+usually the fruit of isolation.
+
+In the studio Piero was industrious and steady, working earnestly,
+whether he was assisting his master's designs or carrying out his own
+fancies of monsters, old myths, and classic fairy stories. No doubt
+the two boys, Mariotto and Baccio, found little companionship in this
+abstracted young man always dreaming over his own ideas. If they told
+him an anecdote, he would look up vacantly at the end not having heard a
+word; at other times every little noise or burst of laughter would annoy
+him, and he would be immoderately angry with the flies and mosquitos.
+
+Piero had already been to Rome, and had assisted Cosimo in his fresco
+of _Christ preaching on Lake Tiberias_; indeed most judges thought his
+landscape the best part of that work, and the talent he showed obtained
+him several commissions. He took the portraits of Virginio Orsini,
+Ruberto Sanseverino and Duke Valentino, son of Pope Alessandro VI. He
+was much esteemed as a portrait painter also in Florence, and from his
+love of classical subjects, and extreme finish of execution, he ranked
+as one of the best painters of "cassoni," or bridal-linen chests.
+
+This fashion excited the indignation of Savonarola, who in one of his
+sermons exclaimed, "Do not let your daughters prepare their 'corredo'
+(trousseau) in a chest with pagan paintings; is it right for a Christian
+spouse to be familiar with Venus before the Virgin, or Mars before the
+saints?"
+
+Thus Piero being a finished painter, was often Cosimo Roselli's
+substitute in the instruction of the two boys, for Cosimo having come
+home from Rome with some money, lived at his ease; but still continued
+to paint frescoes in company with Piero.
+
+Another pupil was Andrea di Cosimo, whose peculiar branch of art
+was that of the grotesque. He no doubt drew designs for friezes and
+fountains, for architraves and door mouldings, in which distorted faces
+look out from all kinds of writhing scrolls; and lizards, dragons,
+snakes, and creeping plants, mingle according to the artist's fancy.
+Andrea was however often employed in more serious work, as the records
+of the Servite Convent prove, for they contain the note of payment to
+him, in 1510, for the curtains of the altarpiece which Filippino Lippi
+had painted. These curtains were till lately attributed to Andrea del
+Sarto, or Francia Bigio.
+
+This is the Andrea Feltrini mentioned by Crowe and Cavalcaselle as
+working in the cloister of the Servi with Andrea del Sarto and Francia
+Bigio between 1509 and 1514.[Footnote: _History of Painting_, vol. iii.
+chap. xvii. p. 546.]
+
+But Baccio's dearest friend in the studio was a boy nearly his own age,
+Mariotto Albertinelli, son of Biagio di Bindo, born October 13, 1474. He
+had experienced the common lot of young artists in those days, and
+had been apprenticed to a gold-beater, but preferred the profession of
+painter. From the first these two lads, being thrown almost entirely
+together in the work of the studio, formed one of those pure, lasting
+friendships, of which so many exist in the annals of art, and so few in
+the material world. They helped each other in the drudgery, and
+enjoyed their higher studies together; but they did not draw all their
+inspirations from the over-coloured works of Cosimo--although Mariotto
+once reproduced his red-winged cherubim in after life [Footnote: In the
+'Trinity' in the Belle Arti, Florence.]--nor from the hard and laboured
+myths of Piero.
+
+They went to higher founts, for scarcely a trace of these early
+influences are to be found in their paintings. Vasari says they studied
+the _Cose di Leonardo_. The great artist had at this time left the
+studio of Verocchio, and was fast rising into fame in Florence, so it
+is most probable that two youths with strong artistic tendencies would
+study, not only the sketches, but also the precepts, of the great man.
+Besides this there were two national art-schools open to students in
+Florence: these were the frescoes of Masaccio and Lippi in the Carmine,
+and the Medicean garden in the Via Cavour, then called Via Larga.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE GARDEN AND THE CLOISTER. A.D. 1487-1495.
+
+
+The two boys left the studio of Cosimo Roselli at an early age. There
+had been trouble in the house of Paolo the ex-muleteer, and Baccio's
+already serious mind had been awed by the sight of death. His little
+brother, Domenico, died in 1486 at seven years of age. His father,
+Paolo, died in 1487; thus Baccio, at the age of twelve or thirteen, was
+left the head of the family, and the supporter of his stepmother and her
+babes. This may account for his leaving Cosimo so young, and setting up
+his studio with Mariotto as his companion, in his own house at the gate
+of S. Pier Gattolini; this partnership began presumably about the year
+1490.
+
+Conscious that they were not perfected by Cosimo's teaching, they both
+set themselves to undergo a strict discipline in art, and, friends as
+they were, their paths began to diverge from this point. Their natural
+tastes led them to opposite schools--Baccio to the sacred shrine of art
+in the shadowed church, Mariotto to the greenery and sunshine of the
+Medici garden, where beauty of nature and classic treasures were heaped
+in profusion; whose loggie [Footnote: Arched colonnades.] glowed with
+the finest forms of Greek sculpture, resuscitated from the tombs of ages
+to inspire newer artists to perfection, but alas! also to debase the aim
+of purely Christian art.
+
+Baccio's calm devotional mind no doubt disliked the turmoil of this
+garden, crowded with spirited youths; the tone of pagan art was not in
+accordance with his ideal, and so he learned from Masaccio and Lippi
+that love of true form and harmonious composition, which he perfected
+afterwards by a close study of Leonardo da Vinci, whose principles
+of _chiaroscuro_ he seems to have completely carried out. With this
+training he rose to such great celebrity even in his early manhood, that
+Rosini [Footnote: Rosini, _Storia della Pittura_, chap. xvii. p.
+48.] calls him "the star of the Florentine school in Leonardo and
+Michelangelo's absence," and he attained a grandeur almost equal to the
+latter, in the S. Mark and SS. Peter and Paul of his later years.
+
+Meanwhile Mariotto was revelling in the Eden of art, drawing
+daily beneath the Loggie--where the orange-trees grew close to the
+pillars--from the exquisite statues and "torsi," peopling the shades
+with white forms, or copying cartoons by the older masters, which hung
+against the walls.
+
+The _custode_ of all these treasures was Bertoldo, an old sculptor, who
+boasted of having been the scholar of Donatello, and also heir to
+his art possessions. He could also point to the bronze pulpits of San
+Lorenzo, which he finished, as proof of his having inherited a portion
+of his master's spirit. Bertoldo, having doubtless rendered to Duke
+Cosimo's keeping his designs by Donatello, which were preserved in the
+garden, obtained the post of instructor there; but his age may have
+prevented his keeping perfect order, and the younger spirits overpowered
+him. There were Michelangelo, with all the youthful power of passion
+and force which he afterwards imparted to his works, and the audacious
+Torrigiano, with his fierce voice, huge bulk, and knitted brows, who
+was himself a discord like the serpent in Eden. Easily offended, he
+was prompt in offering outrage. Did any other young man show talent or
+surpass him, revenge deep and mean as that of Bandinelli to Michelangelo
+was sure to follow, the envied work being spoiled in his rage. Then
+there were the fun-loving Francesco Granacci, and the witty Rustici, as
+full of boyish pranks as they were of genius--what could one old man
+do among so many?--and now comes the impetuous Mariotto to add one more
+unruly member to his class.
+
+How well one can imagine the young men--in loose blouses confined at the
+waist, or in buff jerkins and close-fitting hose, with jaunty cloaks or
+doublets, and little red or black caps, set on flowing locks cut square
+in front--passing beneath the shadows of the arches among the dim
+statues, or crossing the garden in the sunshine amid the orange-trees,
+under the splendid blue Italian skies.
+
+We can see them painting, modelling, or drawing large cartoons in
+charcoal, while old Bertoldo passes from easel to easel, criticising and
+fault-finding, detailing for the hundredth time Donatello's maxims, and
+moving on, heedless or deaf to the irreverent jokes of his ungrateful
+pupils.
+
+Then, like a vision of power and grandeur, Lorenzo il Magnifico enters
+with a group of his classic friends. Politian and the brothers Pulci
+admire again the ancient sculptures which are to them as illustrations
+of their readings, and Lorenzo notes the works of all the students who
+were destined to contribute to the glory of the many Medicean palaces.
+How the burly Torrigiano's heart burns within him when the Duke praises
+his compeer's works!
+
+Sometimes Madonna Alfonsina, the mother of Lorenzo, and widow of Piero,
+walked here, and she also took an interest in the studies of the
+youths. Mariotto especially attracted her by his talent and zeal. She
+commissioned him to paint some pictures for her to send as a present to
+her own family, the Orsini of Rome. These works, of which the subjects
+are not known, passed afterwards into the possession of Caesar Borgia.
+She also sat to Mariotto for her own portrait. It is easily imagined how
+elated the excitable youth became at this notice from the mother of the
+magnificent Lorenzo. He had dreams of making a greater name than even
+his master, Cosimo, whose handiwork was in the Sistine; of excelling
+Michelangelo, of whose genius the world was beginning to talk; and, as
+adhering to a party was the only way to success in those days, he became
+a strong Pallesco, [Footnote: The Palleschi were the partizans of the
+Medici, so called because they took as their standard the Palle, or
+Balls, the arms of that family.] trusting wholly in the favour of
+Madonna Alfonsina.
+
+He even absented himself almost constantly from the studio, which Baccio
+shared with him, and worked at the Medici palace, [Footnote: This break
+is signified by Baldinucci, _Opere_, vol. iv. p. 84, and by Vasari, who
+says that after the exile of Piero he returned to Baccio.] but, alas! in
+1494 this brilliant aspect of his fortunes changed.
+
+Lorenzo being dead, Piero de' Medici was banished, the great palace fell
+into the hands of the republican Signoria, and all the painters were
+left without patronage.
+
+Mariotto, very much cast down, bethought himself of a friend who never
+failed him, and whose love was not affected by party; and, returning to
+the house of Baccio, he set to work, most likely in a renewed spirit of
+confidence in the comrade who stood by him when the princes in whom he
+trusted failed him. Whatever his frame of mind, he began now to study
+earnestly the works of Baccio, who, while he was seeking patronage
+in the palace, had been purifying his genius in the Church. Mariotto
+imbibed more and more of Baccio's style, till their works so much
+resembled one another that indifferent judges could scarcely distinguish
+them apart. It would be interesting if we could see those early pictures
+done for Madonna Alfonsina, and compare them with the style formed after
+this second adherence to Fra Bartolommeo. What his manner afterwards
+became we have a proof in the _Salutation_ (1503), in which there is
+grand simplicity of motive combined with the most extreme richness of
+execution and fullest harmony of colour.
+
+This second union between the friends could not have been so
+satisfactory to either as the first pure boyish love, when they had been
+full of youthful hopes, and felt their hearts expand with the dreams
+and visions of genius. Now instead of the mere differences between two
+styles of art, there were differences which much more seriously affected
+their characters; they were daily sundering, one going slowly towards
+the cloister, the other to the world. Albertinelli had gained a greater
+love of worldly success and luxury.
+
+Baccio's mind, always attuned to devotion, was now intensified by family
+sorrows, which no doubt brought him nearer to heaven. Thus softened,
+he had the more readily received the seeds of faith which Savonarola
+scattered broadcast.
+
+Yet though every word of the one was a wound to the other, this
+strangely assorted pair of friends did not part. Rosini well defined
+their union as "a knot which binds more strongly by pulling contrary
+ways." [Footnote: _Storia della Pittura,_ chap. xvii. p. 48]
+
+So when Albertinelli, while colouring with zeal a design of Baccio's,
+would inveigh against all monks, the Dominicans in particular, and
+Savonarola especially, his friend would argue that the inspired prophet
+was not an enemy, but a purifier and reformer of art. Probably Baccio
+was at the Duomo on that Sunday in Lent, 1495, and reported to Mariotto
+those wondrous words of Savonarola, that "Beauty ought never to be
+taken apart from the true and good," and how, after quoting the same
+sentiments from Socrates and Plato, the preacher went on to say, "True
+beauty is neither in form nor colour, but in light. God is light, and
+His creatures are the more lovely as they approach the nearer to Him in
+beauty. And the body is the more beautiful according to the purity of
+the soul within it." Certain it is that this divine light lived ever
+after in the paintings of Fra Bartolommeo.
+
+He frequented the cloisters of San Marco, where even Lorenzo de' Medici
+used to go and hear the prior expound Christianity near the rose tree.
+There were Lorenzo di Credi and Sandro Botticelli, both middle-aged men,
+of a high standing as artists; there were the Delia Robbias, father and
+son, and several others. Sandro, while listening, must have taken in the
+inspired words with the scent and beauty of the roses, whose spirit he
+gives in so many of his paintings.
+
+Young Baccio, on the contrary, feasted his eyes on the speaker's face,
+till the very soul within it was imprinted on his mind, from whence he
+reproduced it in that marvellous likeness, the year after the martyrdom
+of Savonarola.
+
+This is the earliest known work of Fra Bartolommeo, and is a faithful
+portrait; the deep-sunk eye-socket, and eye like an internal fire,
+showing the preacher's powerful mind; the prominent aquiline nose and
+dilating vehement nostril bespeaking his earnestness and decision; the
+large full mouth alone shows the timorousness which none but himself
+knew of, so overpowered was it by his excitable spirit. The handling is
+Baccio's own able style, but Sig. Cavalcaselle thinks the influences
+of Cosimo Roselli are apparent in the low tone and clouded translucent
+colour; he signed it "Hieronymi Ferrariensis, a Deo missi prophetae
+effigies," a legend which expresses the more than reverence which
+Baccio cherished for the preacher. This portrait has only lately
+been identified by its present possessor, Sig. Ermolao Rubieri, who
+discovered the legend under a coat of paint. Its vicissitudes are
+traceable from the time when Sig. Averardo (or, as Vasari calls him,
+Alamanno) Salviati brought it back from Ferrara, where no doubt it had
+been in the possession of Savonarola's family. Salviati gave it to
+the convent of San Vincenzo at Prato, from which place Sig. Rubieri
+purchased it in 1810. The likeness of the reformer in the Belle Arti of
+Florence has been supposed to be this one, but it is more likely to be
+the one done by Fra Bartolommeo at Pian di Mugnone in after years, when
+he drew the friar as S. Peter Martyr, with the wound on his head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+SAN MARCO. A.D. 1496-1500.
+
+
+Padre Marchese, himself a Dominican, speaks thus of his convent:--"San
+Marco has within its walls the Renaissance, a compendium in two artists.
+Fra Angelico, the painter of the ideal, Fra Bartolommeo, of form. The
+first closes the antique Tuscan school. He who has seen Fra Angelico,
+has seen also Giotto, Cimabue, &c. The second represents the modern
+school. In him are almost comprised Masaccio, Lorenzo di Credi,
+Leonardo, Buonarroti, and Andrea del Sarto."
+
+The first, Fra Angelico, "sets himself to contemplate in God the fount
+and architype of the beautiful, and, as much as is possible to mortal
+hands, reproduces and stamps it in those works which a sensual mind
+cannot understand, but which to the heavenly soul speak an eloquent
+language. Fra Bartolommeo, with more analysis, works thoughtfully ... he
+ascends from the effect to the cause, and in created things contemplates
+a reflection of spiritual beauty."
+
+It is true the Dominican order has been as great a patron of arts as the
+Franciscan of literature. It united with Niccolo Pisano to give form
+to national architecture. It had sculptors, miniaturists, and glass
+painters. As a building San Marco has been a shrine of art; since the
+time that Michelozzi, with the assistance of the Medici, built the
+convent for Sant' Antonino, and Fra Angelico left the impress of his
+soul on the walls, a long line of artist monks has lived within
+its cloisters. With San Marco our story has now to deal, for it is
+impossible to write Fra Bartolommeo's life without touching on the
+well-known history of Savonarola. The great preacher's influence in
+these years, from 1492 to 1497, entered into almost every individual
+in Florence, either to draw them to devotion, or to stir them up to the
+greatest opposition.
+
+The artists, whose minds were probably the most impressional, were his
+fervent adherents. He has been accused of being the ruin of art, but
+"this cry has only arisen in our time; the silence of contemporaries,
+although not friendly to him, proves that he was not in that century so
+accused." [Footnote: Gino Capponi, _Storia delta Republica di Firenze_,
+lib. vi. chap. ii.] The only mention of anything of artistic value is a
+"tavoliere" [Footnote: A chess or draught board.] of rich work, spoken
+of by Burlamacchi and Benivieni, in a "Canzone di un Piagnone sul
+bruciamento delle Vanita." Savonarola himself was an artist and musician
+in early life, the love of the beautiful was strong within him, only
+he would have it go hand in hand with the good and true. His dominant
+spirit was that of reform; as he tried to regenerate mind, morals,
+literature, and state government, so he would reform art, and fling over
+it the spiritual light which illumed his own soul.
+
+It was natural that such a mind should act on the devotional character
+of Baccio. What could he do but join when every church was full of
+worshippers, each shrine at the street corners had a crowd of devout
+women on their knees before it--when thousands of faces were uplifted in
+the vast expanse of the Duomo, and every face burned with fervour as the
+divine flame from the preacher lit the lamp of each soul--when in the
+streets he met long processions of men, women, and children, the echoes
+of whose hymns (Laudi) filled the narrow streets, and went up to the
+clear air above them?
+
+Then came that strange carnival when there were no maskers in the city,
+but white-robed boys went from house to house to collect the vanities
+for the burning--when the flames of the fires, hitherto saturnalian,
+were the flames of a holocaust, wherein each one cast the sins and
+temptations, even the pretty things which, though dear to himself,
+withdrew him from God. And when the white-robed boys came to the studio
+of the friends at the gate of S. Pier Gattolini, with what sighs and
+self-immolation Baccio looked for the last time at some of his studies
+which he judged to come under the head of _anathemata_, and handed them
+over to the acolytes. How Mariotto's soul, warm to Pagan art, burned
+within him at this sacrifice! And how he would talk more than ever
+against the monks, and hang up his own cartoons and studies of the Greek
+Venus in the studio for Baccio's behoof!
+
+In these years we have no notice of authentic works done by the youthful
+partners, though biographers talk of their having commissions for
+madonnas, and other works of art.
+
+In 1497 Francesco Valori, the grand-featured, earnest admirer of
+Savonarola, became Gonfaloniere in the time of Piero de' Medici's exile,
+[Footnote: Gino Capponi, _Storia delta Republica di Firenze_, lib. vi.
+chap. xi. p. 233.] and the friar's party was in the ascendent. Rosini
+[Footnote: _Storia delta Pittura_, chap. xvii. p. 48.] says that
+belonging to a faction was a means of fame, and that the Savonarola
+party was powerful, giving this as a reason for Baccio's partisanship;
+but this we can hardly believe, his whole life proved his earnestness.
+He was much beloved in Florence for his calm upright nature and good
+qualities. He delighted in the society of pious and learned men, spent
+much time in the convent, where he had many friends among the monks; yet
+with all he kept still faithful to his early friend Mariotto, whose
+life was cast so differently. Savonarola's faction was powerful, but the
+Medici had still adherents who stirred up a strong party against him.
+
+His spirit of reform at length aroused the ire of the Pope, who forbade
+him to preach. He disobeyed, and the sermons on Ezekiel were scenes
+of tumult; no longer a group of rapt faces dwelling on his words, but
+frowns, murmurs, and anathemas from a crowd only kept off him by a
+circle of armed adherents round his pulpit.
+
+At length, on June 22nd, the excommunication by Pope Alessandro VI.
+(Borgia) fell like a thunderclap, and the Medicean youths marched in
+triumphant procession with torches and secular music to burlesque the
+Laudi; no doubt Albertinelli was one of these, while Baccio grieved
+among the awestruck friars in the convent.
+
+In 1498 Savonarola again lifted up his voice; the church was not large
+enough, so he preached beneath the blue sky on the Piazza San Marco;
+and Fra Domenico Buonvicini da Pescia, in the eagerness of partisanship,
+said that his master's words would stand the ordeal of fire. Then came
+that tumultuous day of April 7th, the "Sunday of the Olives," when the
+Franciscans and Dominicans argued while the fire burnt out before
+them, when Savonarola's great spirit quailed within him, and the ordeal
+failed; a merciful rain quenching the flames which none dared to brave
+save the undaunted Fra Domenico himself.
+
+There was no painting done in the studio on that day we may be sure.
+Baccio was one of the surging, conflicting crowd gathered beneath the
+mingling shadows of Orcagna's arches and Arnolfo's great palace, and at
+eventide he was one of the armed partisans who protected the friar back
+to his convent, menaced not only by rains from heaven, but by the stormy
+wrath of an angry populace, defrauded of the sight they came to see.
+
+The next day was the one which determined the painter's future life.
+
+There was in the city a curious process of crystallisation of all the
+particles held in solution round the fire the previous day. The Palazzo
+Vecchio attracted about its doors the "Arrabiati." The "Compagnacci"
+assembled, armed, by the Duomo. The streets were full of detached
+parties of Piagnoni, treading ways of peril to their centre, San Marco.
+
+Passions raged and seethed all day, till at the hour of vespers a cry
+arose, "_a San Marco_," and thither the multitude--500 Compagnacci, and
+300 Palleschi--rushed, armed with picks and arquebusses, &c. They killed
+some stray Piagnoni whom they found praying by a shrine, and placed
+guards at the streets which led to the convent; then the assault began.
+
+The church was dimly lighted. Savonarola and Fra Domenico kneeled on the
+steps of the altar, with many worshippers around them, singing tremulous
+hymns; amongst these were Francesco Valori, Ridolfi, and Baccio della
+Porta, but all armed, as Cronaca tells us. They still sang hymns when
+the doors were attacked with stones; then leaving the priests and women
+to pray for them the men rushed to the defence.
+
+Old Valori, with a few brave friends, guarded the door; others made
+loop-holes of the windows and fired out; some went up the campanile, and
+some on the roof. Baccio fought bravely among the rest. The Palleschi
+were almost repulsed, but at length succeeded in setting fire to the
+doors. The church was filled with smoke; a turbulent crowd rushed wildly
+in. Savonarola saw his people fall dead beside him on the altar steps,
+and, taking up the Sacrament, he fled to the Greek library, where
+the messengers of the Signoria came and arrested both himself and Fra
+Domenico. It was in the fierce fight that ensued when the enemies poured
+in, laying hands sacrilegiously on every thing sacred, that Baccio made
+the vow that if he were saved this peril, he would take the habit--a vow
+which certainly was not made in a cowardly spirit, he fighting to the
+death, and then espousing the losing cause. [Footnote: Gino Capponi,
+lib. vi. chaps. i. and ii., and Padre Marchese, _San Marco_, p. 147 _et
+seq._]
+
+Then came that sad 23rd of May, the eve of the Ascension, when three
+martyrs went calmly to their death beneath the shadow of the old palace,
+amidst the insults of an infuriated crowd, and Arno's yellow waters
+received their ashes. [Footnote: Capponi, chap. ii. p. 253.]
+
+[Illustration: SAVONAROLO AS PETER MARTYR. BY FRA BARTOLOMMEO. _In the
+Accademia delle Belle Arti, Florence_.]
+
+After the death of Savonarola the party had many defaulters; but
+Baccio, the Delia Robbias, Credi, Cronaca, and many other artists, were
+faithful, and even showed their grief by abandoning for a time the arts
+they loved. "It almost seemed as if with him they had lost the sacred
+flame from which their fervid imagination drew life and aliment."
+[Footnote: Marchese, _San Marco_, lib. iii. p. 261.]
+
+While all these events had been taking place, Baccio had worked as often
+as his perturbed spirit would allow, at a great fresco of the _Last
+Judgment_, in a chapel of the cemetery of S. Maria Nuova. A certain
+Gerozzi, di Monna Venna Dini, gave him the commission, and as far as he
+had gone, the painter had given entire satisfaction. This fresco, his
+first as far as is known, shows Baccio's style as fully as his later
+ones. We have here his great harmony of form, and intense suggestiveness
+in composition. The infinity of heaven is emblematised in circles of
+saints and cherubim around the enthroned Christ. The cross, a link
+between heaven and earth, is borne by a trinity of angels; S. Michael,
+as the avenging spirit, stands a powerful figure in the foreground
+dividing the saved from the lost; the whole composition forming a
+heavenward cross on an earthly foundation. There are no caves and
+holes of torture with muscular bodies writhing within them; but in the
+despairing figures passing away on the right, some with heads bowed on
+clasped hands, others lifting up faces and arms in a vain cry for mercy,
+what suggestions there are of infinite remorse!--more dignified far than
+the distorted sufferers in the torture pits of previous masters. These
+are just indicated by two demons, and a subterranean fire behind the
+unblest souls. Miss Owen, [Footnote: _Art Schools of Christendom_,
+edited by Prof. Ruskin.] speaking Mr. Ruskin's sentiments, calls this
+a great falling off from Giotto and Orcagna's conceptions; but though
+theirs may be more powerful and terrible, a greater suggestion of
+Christian religion is here.
+
+They, and later, Michelangelo, flung Dante's great struggling soul in
+tangible forms upon the walls, and embodied his poem, awful, grand, and
+earnest, with all the human passion intensified into human suffering.
+Fra Bartolommeo shows the Christian spirit; his faces look beyond the
+present judgment, and, instead of wrath, mercy is the predominating
+idea. It is like the difference in spirit between the Old Testament and
+the New.
+
+The painter's reverence of Fra Angelico, and estimation of the divinity
+of art, is shown by Fra Angelico being placed among the saints of heaven
+on the right of the Saviour.
+
+Leonardo's instructions for shading off a light sky will occur to any
+one who studies the finely gradated tints mingling with the clouds
+around the celestial group. But grand as the fresco is, and interesting
+as it must have been to the artist at this time, when thoughts of
+Savonarola mingled with every stroke, he felt he was not fulfilling his
+true mission in the world. Drawn more and more to the convent, hallowed
+to him by the memory of the martyr-friar, he was also more attuned to
+thoughts of retirement by family bereavements--one young brother, Piero,
+only being left to him out of the whole circle. The reluctance to leave
+this youth alone may have deferred for a time his taking the monastic
+vows; but having placed him under the guardianship of Santi Pagnini, a
+Dominican, he consigned the _Last Judgment_ to Mariotto to finish, and
+leaving his worldly goods to his brother, took the habit in the convent
+of S. Domenico, at Prato, on July 26th, 1500, two years after first
+making the resolution. His year of probation over, he took the final
+vows and became Fra Bartolommeo.
+
+A document in S. Marco proves that he was possessed of worldly goods
+when he entered, [Footnote: Rosini, _Storia della Pittura_, chap xxvii.]
+among which were the house of his father in S. Pier Gattolini, and
+the podere at Brozzi. Having once given himself up to monasticism, Fra
+Bartolommeo would offer no half-service, his brushes were left behind
+with all other worldly things, and here closes Baccio della Porta's
+first artistic career.
+
+His sun was set only to rise again to greater brilliance in the future
+as Fra Bartolommeo, a name famous for ever in the annals of art.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+FRA BARTOLOMMEO IN THE CONVENT. A.D. 1504-1509.
+
+
+Four years had passed, and the monk had never touched a pencil, but his
+mission in art was not fulfilled, and events were working towards that
+end, for the spirit of art once awakened could not die either in that
+convent or in that age.
+
+His friend, Mariotto, kept him _au courant_ in all the gossip of art,
+and told him of the great cartoons of Leonardo and Michelangelo, which
+he too went to see. They might have inspired him afresh, or perhaps in
+advising Albertinelli he himself felt impelled to paint, or possibly the
+visits of Raphael in 1504 influenced him.
+
+Padre Marchese takes the conventional view, and says that Santi Pagnini,
+the oriental scholar and lover of art, came back to S. Marco in 1504 as
+prior, and used not only his entreaties, but his authority, to induce
+Fra Bartolommeo to recommence painting. However this may be, it is
+certain that when Bernardo del Bianco, who had built a beautiful chapel
+in the Badia from Rovezzano's designs, wished for an altar-piece worthy
+of its beauty, which he felt no hand could execute so well as that of
+the Frate--he yielded to persuasion, and the _Vision of S. Bernard_
+was begun. The contract is dated 18th November, 1504; a part payment
+of sixty florins in gold was made 16th of June, 1507. [Footnote: Padre
+Marchese, _Memorie_, iii. vol. ii. p. 594.]
+
+This picture, now in the Belle Arti of Florence, is so much injured by
+re-painting that some parts seem even crude. The saint is on his knees
+writing, while the vision of the Virgin and Child stands poised in
+air before him; she inspires his pen, and the infant Christ gives His
+blessing on the work. There is great spirituality and ecstasy in St.
+Bernard's face, his white robe contrasts well with two saints behind
+him, which carry out Fra Bartolommeo's favourite triangular grouping,
+and with a rich harmony of colour balance his white robe.
+
+The Virgin is drawn with great nobility and grace, her drapery admirably
+majestic, yet airy, and a sweet, infantile playfulness renders the Child
+charming. The angels beneath the Virgin's feet are lovely, but the group
+of seraphs behind are the least pleasing of all. They are of the earth,
+earthy, and seem reminiscences of the Florentine maidens the artist met
+in the streets. Possibly this is the part most injured by the restorer's
+hand. The colouring of the two saints behind S. Bernard-one in a green
+robe with bronze-gold shades, and the other blue and orange-is very
+suggestive of Andrea del Sarto, and seems to render probable Rosini's
+assertion that the Frate "taught the first steps of this difficult
+career to that artist who alone was called 'senz' errori.'"
+
+Having once retaken the brush, Fra Bartolommeo recovered his former
+skill and fame; a beautiful specimen of this period is the _Meeting of
+Christ with the Disciples of Emmaus_ (1506), a fresco in a lunette over
+the door of the refectory at S. Marco; in which he combines a richness
+of colouring rarely obtained in fresco, with a drawing which is almost
+perfect. Fra Niccolo della Magna, who was prior in that year, and
+left in 1507 to become Archbishop of Capua, sat for one of the saints.
+Contemporory with this may be dated also the figure of the _Virgin_,
+painted for Agnolo Doni, now in the Corsini gallery in Rome. Giovanni
+de' Medici also gave him a commission.
+
+Meanwhile the _S. Bernard_ was not paid for. Fra Bartolommeo priced it
+at 200 ducats, and the convent being the gainer by his works, took
+his own valuation. Bernardo offered only eighty ducats; the Frati were
+indignant, and called in the Abbot of the Badia as umpire; he being
+unable to move Bernardo, retired from office; then a council of friends
+was resolved on, in which Mariotto was for the painter, and Lorenzo de
+Credi for the purchaser; but this also failed.
+
+It was next proposed to submit the question to the Guild of Druggists
+(_arte degli speziali_), which included at that time also doctors and
+painters; but the convent, refusing lay judgment, took the offer of
+Francesco Magalotti, a relative of Bernardo, who priced it at 100
+ducats, and the monks had to be satisfied. The dispute ended July 17th,
+1507. [Footnote: Rosini, _Storia della Pittura_, chap, xxvii. p. 245,
+and Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, &c., vol. ii. pp. 42 to 45.]
+
+All writers agree as to the fact of Fra Bartolommeo's friendship
+with Raphael, but very few are decided as to its date. Raphael was
+in Florence in 1504, but then Fra Bartolommeo had not re-commenced
+painting, and would have no works in the convent to excite his
+admiration of the colouring. Padre Marchese, following Rosini and Padre
+Luigi Pungeleoni, asserts that this intimacy was during Raphael's second
+visit in 1506, when he might have seen the newly-finished fresco of
+_The Disciples at Emmaus_. It is undoubted that their intercourse was
+beneficial to both. Raphael studied anew Leonardo's principles of colour
+under Fra Bartolommeo's interpretation of them, and the Frate improved
+his knowledge of perspective and harmony of composition. It is said they
+worked together at some pictures, of which one is in France, and another
+at Milan; but there is not sufficient evidence to prove this.
+
+It is also thought that Fra Bartolommeo helped in the composition of
+Raphael's famous _Madonna del Baldacchino_, which is truly very much in
+his style.
+
+The year 1508 marks the Frate's first acquaintance with the Venetian
+school, which was not without its influence upon him. Frequent
+interchange of visits took place between the Dominicans in the different
+parts of Italy; and Fra Bartolommeo took the opportunity then offered
+him of going to visit his brethren at Venice.
+
+His namesake, Baccio di Monte Lupo, a sculptor who had fled from
+Florence after the death of Savonarola, and who had fought side by side
+with Baccio in the siege of S. Mark's church, was in Venice at that
+time, working on the tomb of Benedetto da Pesaro in the church of the
+Frati, and he was only too delighted to show the beauties of the Queen
+of the Adriatic to an artistic mind. Tintoretto was not yet born; Titian
+was only just rising into fame, though his style had not yet become what
+it was after Giorgione's influence; but Fra Bartolommeo must have found
+much that was sympathetic in the exquisite works of Giovanni Bellini and
+his school, and much to admire in the glorious colouring of Giorgione.
+
+Father Dalzano, the vicar of the monastery of S. Peter Martyr at Murano,
+gave the Florentine monk a commission for a picture of the value of
+seventy or 100 ducats. Not having time to paint this during his stay, he
+promised to execute it on his return to Florence, and the vicar paid him
+in advance twenty-eight ducats in money and colours; the rest was to be
+raised by the sale of some MS. letters from S. Catherine of Siena, which
+a friend of Father Dalzano near Florence held in possession.
+
+Fra Bartolommeo, having brought home from the Venetian school a new
+impulse for painting, and wishing to diffuse the religious influence of
+art more widely, desired to enlarge his atelier and school at San Marco.
+His only assistants in the convent were Fra Paolino of Pistoja, and one
+or two miniaturists, who were only good at missals. Fra Paolino (born
+1490) took the vows at a very early age, and was removed to Florence
+from Prato with Fra Bartolommeo. He was the son of a painter, Bernardino
+di Antonio, but though he learned the first principles from him, his
+real art was imbibed from the Frate, under whom, together with Mariotto,
+he worked for years.
+
+But this youthful scholar was not enough for Fra Bartolommeo's new
+energies. He pined for his old friend, Mariotto, who could follow out
+his designs in his own style so closely, that an unpractised eye could
+not see the difference of hand; and such was his influence on the rulers
+of the order, that they allowed a most unique partnership to be entered
+into.
+
+The parties were, Albertinelli on one side, and the convent and Fra
+Bartolommeo on the other. The partners to provide the expenses, and
+the profits to be divided between the convent and Mariotto; the vow
+of poverty not allowing Fra Bartolommeo as an individual any personal
+share. This began in 1509 and lasted till 1512. The inventory of the
+profits and the division made when the partnership was dissolved, given
+entire by Padre Marchese, [Footnote: Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, &c.,
+vol. ii.] are very interesting. The two artists had separate monograms
+to distinguish the pictures which were specially their own, besides
+which the monk signed his with the touching petition, "_orate pro
+pictore,_" his friend merely Latinising his name; the works painted
+together were signed by the combined monograms. Before setting a hand to
+anything else, the Frate fulfilled his engagement to the Venetian prior,
+for whom he painted the _Eternal in Heaven_, surrounded by saints and
+angels; but of this we will speak later.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+ALBERTINELLI IN THE WORLD. A.D. 1501-1510.
+
+
+During the interval between the second and third partnership of this
+incongruous pair of friends, the life of Albertinelli had been very
+different from that of the Frate. So distressed was he at losing Baccio
+that he was quite wild for a time. His passions being unruled, that of
+grief took entire possession of him. In his despair he vowed to give up
+painting; he declared that he would also become a monk, if it were not
+that he now hated them more than ever; besides, he was a Pallesco, and
+could not desert his party.
+
+After a time, however, he calmed down, and, looking on his friend's
+unfinished fresco of the _Last Judgment_ as a legacy from him, began
+to work at it as a kind of obligation till the occupation wove its
+own charm, and he steadily devoted himself to art again, much to the
+satisfaction of good Gerozzi Dini, who was in great perturbation, and
+declared there was not another hand but his in Florence which could
+finish it; and also to the relief of Fra Bartolommeo himself, who,
+having received money on account, was troubled in conscience lest it
+should remain unfinished. There remained only some figures to put in the
+terrestrial group, all the celestial portions having been finished by
+the Frate; but they are very well drawn figures, with a good deal of
+expression in them. Several are likenesses, amongst whom are Dini and
+his wife, Bugiardini, the painter's pupil, and himself. Most of these
+are now destroyed by the effects of damp.
+
+Mariotto left Fra Bartolommeo's house in S. Pier Gattolini, and took
+a room in Gualfonda--now Via Val Fonda--a street leading towards the
+fortress, built by the Grand Duke Cosimo on the north of the city;
+and here in time quite a school grew up under his tuition. Giuliano
+Bugiardini was his head assistant rather than pupil; Francia Bigio, then
+a boy, Visino, who afterwards went to Hungary, and Innocenzio da Nicola,
+besides Piero, Baccio's brother, were all scholars. Albertinelli's
+Bottega in Val Fonda gave some noble paintings to the world, works
+independently his own, though Fra Bartolommeo's influence is traceable
+in most of them. The finest of these is the _Salutation_, dated
+1503--ordered for the Church of S. Martino, and now the gem of the hall
+of the Old Masters in the Uffizi Gallery--a work which alone has been
+able to mark him for all time as a great master.
+
+So simple is the subject, and yet so grand the proportions, and in the
+figures there is such majesty of maternity and dignity of womanhood! A
+decorated portico, with the heavens behind it, forms the background to
+the two noble women, in one of whom is expressed the gracious sympathy
+of an elder matron with the awful, mysterious joy of the younger.
+
+The colouring, perfectly harmonised, is the most masterly blending of
+a subdued tone with soft yet brilliant and shows a deep study of the
+method of Leonardo.
+
+The predella has an _Annunciation_, _Nativity_, and _Circumcision_; all
+showing the same able style, but more injured by time than the picture.
+
+Another charming painting of this period is the _Nativity_ at the Pitti,
+a round, on panel. The _Madonna_ is not quite so noble as that of the
+_Salutation_, but the limbs of the child are beautifully rounded. There
+is a pretty group of three angels singing in the sky; the landscape is
+as minute in detail as those his old fellow-pupil Piero used to paint in
+Cosimo's studio.
+
+In 1504-5 Fra Bartolommeo called upon him for a deed of friendship,
+which proves that, whatever biographers (building up theories on a word
+or two in Vasari) may say of his want of steadiness, the friend who knew
+him best had supreme trust in him. Santi Pagnini, having been removed to
+Siena as prior, Fra Bartolommeo made Mariotto guardian and instructor
+of his young brother Piero, signing a contract that Mariotto was to have
+the use and management of all estates and possessions of Piero, which
+included several _poderi_ in the country, as well as the house at the
+Porta Romana (S. Pier Gattolini). In return Albertinelli was to keep
+Piero in his house, teach, clothe, and provide for him, not, however,
+being obliged to give him more than "sette (seven) soldi" a month.
+Albertinelli was also to have a mass said yearly in the Church of S.
+Pier Gattolini for the soul of Paolo the muleteer, and to use two pounds
+of wax candles thereat. [Footnote: Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, vol. ii.
+pp. 36, 37.] The contract was signed from 1st January, 1505, and was to
+last till 1st January, 1511. It appears that this brother Piero was a
+great trouble to the Frate, being of a bizarre disposition, and addicted
+to squandering money; he sold some possessions for much less than their
+worth, [Footnote: Private communication from Sig. G. Milanesi.] which
+probably accounts for the singular contract of guardianship. He did not
+show enough talent to become a painter, and took priests' orders later.
+
+About this time Fra Bartolommeo recommenced work, and while he
+was painting the triptych for Donatello's _Madonna_ (the miniature
+_Nativity_ and _Circumcision_ in the Uffizi), Albertinelli was at
+work in the convent of the Certosa, at a _Crucifixion_ in fresco.
+The painting is extant in the chapterhouse, and is a very fair and
+unrestored specimen of his best style. The Virgin and Magdalen are very
+purely conceived figures; the idea of the angels gathering the blood
+falling from the wounded hands of the crucified Saviour is very tender;
+there is a great brightness of colouring, and a greenish landscape
+almost Peruginesque in feeling. Some of his pupils worked with him at
+the Certosa, and nearly brought their master into trouble.
+
+They were not more content with convent fare than was Davide
+Ghirlandajo, when the only delicacy supplied him at Vallombrosa was
+cheese; and to revenge themselves, they stole round the cloister after
+the circular sliding panels by which the rations were sent into the
+monks' cells were filled, and feasted on the meals made ready for the
+good brothers. Great confusion ensued in the convent, the monks accusing
+each other of the theft; but when they found out the real culprits, they
+made a compromise, promising double rations if the artists would hasten
+their work and leave them their daily dole in peace.
+
+The fresco is dated 1506. The same year produced the fine picture now
+in the Louvre, which was painted for the church of S. Trinita on the
+commission of Zanobio del Maestro.
+
+The _Madonna_, stands on a pedestal, with S. Jerome and S. Zenobio
+in front, while episodes from their lives are brought in like distant
+echoes in the background. [Footnote: S. Zenobio was the first bishop of
+Florence, and is the patron saint of that city.]
+
+The nuns of S. Giuliano employed him to paint two pictures, both of
+which are now in the Belle Arti. One is an altarpiece; the _Madonna
+enthroned_, with the Divine Child in her arms. Era Bartolommeo's idea
+of an angel-sustained canopy is here, but the angels hold it up from the
+outside instead of the inside. Before her are S. John the Baptist,
+S. Julian, S. Nicholas, and S. Dominic. The S. Julian has a great
+similarity to the S. Michael of Perugino, and the S. John, by its good
+modelling, shows the result of his studies from the antique in the
+Medici garden.
+
+For the same church he did the curious conventional painting of
+the _Trinity_ on a gold ground. The subject is inartistic, because
+unapproachable; the attempt to paint that which is a deep spiritual
+mystery degrades both the art and the subject; the latter because it
+lowers it to human grasp, the former because it shows its powerlessness
+to shadow forth the infinite. There is beautiful painting in the heads
+of the angels, at the foot of the Cross, but the brilliancy of the gold
+ground is overpowering to the colours, albeit he has balanced it
+by reproducing Cosimo Roselli's red-winged cherubs. Nothing but Fra
+Angelico's delicate tints can bear such a background. No doubt
+Piero, Baccio's brother, helped to lay on this gold, for one of the
+stipulations in the contract with Mariotto was that he was to "metter
+d' oro ed altre cose di mazoneria" (to put on gold and other articles of
+emblazonment).
+
+It has been a great subject of conjecture at what part of his life
+Albertinelli took the rash step of throwing up his art and opening
+a tavern at Porta S. Gallo. Some say it was in his despair at Fra
+Bartolommeo having taken the vows, but this is disproved by his having
+at that time finished the _Last Judgment_, and taken pupils in Val
+Fonda. Others assert that it was at the breaking up of the last
+partnership in 1513, but there is no hiatus in his work at that time,
+existing paintings being dated in 1513 and the following years till his
+death, three years after.
+
+Vasari, though not to be depended on in regard to dates--chronology not
+being his forte--is generally right in the gossip and stories of the
+lives near his own time, and it is by collateral evidence from his pages
+that we are able to fix with more certainty 1508 or 1509 as the time of
+this episode in Albertinelli's life. In 1507 we find him as an artist
+helping to value his friend's picture, and mediating between the convent
+and Bernardo del Bianco. [Footnote: Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. iii.
+chap. xvii. p. 544.] Now, in the 'Life of Andrea del Sarto,' we read
+that Francia Bigio, Albertinelli's pupil, made the acquaintance of
+Andrea while studying the Cartoons in the Hall of the Council (this was
+from 1506 to 1508), and as their friendship increased, Andrea confided
+to Francia Bigio that he could no longer endure the eccentricities of
+Piero di Cosimo, and determined to seek a home for himself, and that
+Francia Bigio being also alone--his master Mariotto Albertinelli _having
+abandoned the art of painting_--they determined to share a studio
+and rooms. [Footnote: Vasari, vol. iii. p. 182.] The first works the
+partners undertook were the frescoes of the Scalzo and the Servi, which
+were begun in 1509. Thus the date is tolerably certain, especially as a
+gap occurs in Albertinelli's works at this time.
+
+Sig. Gaetano Milanesi's researches in the Archives have thrown a new
+light on Mariotto's motives, which were not entirely connected with
+art; it was not that he was discouraged by adverse criticism, nor wholly
+that, as time divided him from his friend, he felt he could produce
+no great work away from his influence, but it was partly that he had
+married a wife named Antonia, whose father kept an inn at S. Gallo.
+It is possible the tavern came to him by way of _dot_, and the above
+reasons making him discontented with art for a time, might have induced
+him to carry on the business himself. Sig. Milanesi says a document
+exists of a contract in which Mariotto's name is connected with a
+tavern, but that he has never been able to retrace it since the first
+time he found it. It is his opinion that the whole story arose from the
+fact of the wife's family possessing this wine shop, and his connection
+with it in that way.
+
+But though Albertinelli passed off his pseudo-hostdom with bravado,
+talking very wittily about it, the artistic vein was too strong within
+him to be subdued; he soon gave up the flask and returned to the brush,
+for in 1509, when his quondam pupil, Francia Bigio, was busy at the
+Servi, we again find Mariotto's hand in a painting of the _Madonna_. The
+Virgin, holding a pomegranate in her hand, supports with the other the
+Child, who stands on a parapet, and clings to the bosom of his mother's
+dress for support, in a truly natural way; the infant Baptist stands
+by. The painting, signed, and dated 1509, is in the Fitzwilliam Museum,
+Cambridge, but has been injured by repainting. In spite of this, Messrs.
+Crowe and Cavalcaselle believe they perceive Bugiardini's hand in it.
+
+In 1510 Albertinelli began one of his masterpieces, the _Annunciation_
+for the company of S. Zenobio, now in the Belle Arti. All his zeal for
+art was reawakened, he flung himself _con amore_ into this work, which,
+though in oil on panel, was painted on the spot where it was intended to
+be placed, that the lights might be managed with the best effect. He was
+imbued with Leonardo da Vinci's principle, that the greatest relief
+and force are to be combined with softness, and wishing to bring this
+combination to a perfection which never before had been reached, he
+depended greatly on the natural light to further his design. [Footnote:
+Vasari, vol. ii. p. 469.]
+
+The picture, although a great work of art, and the most laboured of
+all his paintings, failed to satisfy the artist. He tried various
+experiments, painting in and painting out, but never reaching his own
+ideal. According to Leonardo, he was proving himself a good artist, one
+of his principles being, "when his (an artist's) knowledge and light
+surpass his work so that he is not satisfied with himself or his
+endeavours, it is a happy omen." [Footnote: Leonardo da Vinci, Treatise
+on Painting.]
+
+The work as it stands is a noble one, though darkened by time having
+brought out the black pigments used in the shades. The background is an
+intricate piece of architecture with vaulted roof, showing that he
+too had profited by Raphael's instructions in perspective to Fra
+Bartolommeo.
+
+The Virgin is a tender sweet figure; indeed no artist has given more
+gracious dignity to womanhood than Albertinelli, although his detractors
+say his life showed no great respect for it. Above, the Almighty is
+seen in a yellow light with a circle of angels and seraphs around. It
+is strange how the realistic painters stopped at nothing, not even the
+representation of the eternal in a human form. Is not this the reason
+why art ceased about this time to be the interpreter of religion, and
+found its true mission in being the interpreter of nature? Who can draw
+one soul? How much more impossible then to depict the incomprehensible
+soul in which all others have their being? The utmost we can do is to
+give the indication of the spirit in the expression of a face, and that
+so imperfectly that not two beholders read it alike. Study Perugino and
+Raphael, see how they raise human nature and etherealize it till we see
+the divinity of soul in the faces of their saints and martyrs. But the
+moment they try to depict the Almighty, or even his angels, they fall at
+once below humanity.
+
+But to return to the _Annunciation_ of Albertinelli. His impetuous
+temper betrayed him even here; he fell into a dispute with his patrons,
+who refused to pay the price he asked. The usual "trial by his peers"
+was resorted to, Perugino, Granacci, and Ridolfo Ghirlandajo were called
+into council to value it according to its merits.
+
+On completing this picture the events we have related in the last
+chapter took place, Fra Bartolommeo returned from Venice with his
+enterprise renewed, and the convent partnership was commenced.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CONVENT PARTNERSHIP. A.D. 1510--1513.
+
+
+We now come to the studio of S. Marco, where the two friends, who had
+dreamed together as boys, and worked together as youths, now laboured
+jointly as men, bringing to light some of the finest works of art that
+remain to us. During these three years Albertinelli's star seems merged
+in that of his senior, his hand is to be recognised in the lower parts
+of a few altarpieces; but it is always difficult to distinguish the two
+styles.
+
+It was a very busy atelier, for they had many patrons. Bugiardini was
+still Mariotto's head assistant, and Fra Paolino, and one or two other
+monks, worked under Fra Bartolommeo, besides pupils of both, among whom
+were Gabriele Rustici and Benedetto Cianfanini.
+
+The studio was on the part of the convent between the cloister and Via
+del Maglio, [Footnote: Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, vol. ii. p. 69.] and
+we can quite picture its interior. There stands the lay figure on which
+Fra Bartolommeo draped the garments that take such majestic folds in his
+works; [Footnote: Fra Bartolommeo was the inventor of the jointed lay
+figure.] there are several casts and models in different parts of the
+room; grand cartoons in charcoal hang on the walls, like those we see
+to this day in the Uffizi and Belle Arti. So many of these masterly
+sketches are the Frate's and so few are Mariotto's that we may presume
+the former was in most instances the designer. And to what perfection he
+carried design! Not a figure was drawn except its lines harmonised with
+the geometric rhythm in the artist's mind. His groups fall by nature
+into kaleidoscopic figures of circles, triangles, ellipses, crosses, &c.
+Not a cartoon was sketched in which the lights and shadows were not as
+gradated and finished as a painting, although they were merely drawn
+with charcoal. The following was the method of work in the "bottega."
+The panels were prepared with a coating of plaster of Paris, over
+which, when dry, a coat of under colour, ground in oil, was passed. The
+preparing of the panels fell to the work of one of the monk scholars,
+Fra Andrea.[Footnote: The books of the convent have a note of payment to
+Fra Bartolommeo for 20th March, 1512, "per parte di lavoro di Fra Andrea
+converse per mettere d'oro, et ingessare alle tavole nella bottega in
+diversi lavori" (Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, lib. ii. chap. in. p. 70).]
+Then the master made his sketch in white, or "sgraffito" (i.e. graven
+on the plaster), as in the architectural lines of the pictures of patron
+saints in the Uffizi, and the _Marriage of S. Catherine_ in the Pitti
+Palace; he also put in the shadows in monochrome. But the assistants,
+who were skilled artists, were called to put broad level tints of local
+colour on the buildings, &c., the master himself finishing the faces. No
+doubt Albertinelli was often deputed to the study of the lay figure and
+its drapery. Where he assisted, the monogram, a cross with two rings and
+the joint names, marked the work, as en a panel of 1510 in Vienna, and
+another at Geneva.
+
+Fra Bartolommeo only imitated Leonardo in his intense force and soft
+gradations; the general thinness of colour is opposed to his system. He
+followed him, however, in his method of painting his shadows with the
+brush, instead of "hatching" them; he used the same yellowish ground,
+and "sfumato," [Footnote: Eastlake's _Materials for a History of Oil
+Painting_, vol. ii. chap. iv.] _i.e._ the imperceptible softening of the
+transition in half-lights and shadows; it was effected by glazes, and is
+not adapted to a thin substance. The great mistake in Fra Bartolommeo's
+system was the preparing his paintings like cartoons, and using
+asphaltum or lamp-black for outlines and shadows; this in process of
+time destroys the super-colour, and gives a general blackness to the
+painting.
+
+The same kind of talk went on here as in modern studios. When the
+frame-maker came, Fra Bartolommeo would be vexed to see how much of his
+work was hidden beneath the massive cornice, and would vow to dispense
+with frames altogether, which he did in his _S. Sebastian_ and _S.
+Mark_, by painting an architectural niche round the subject like a
+carving in relief.
+
+The first work begun at the convent studio was the picture for Father
+Dalgano of Venice, the subject of which is the _Eternal Father in
+Heaven_, surrounded by seraphs and angels. Perhaps in this we have the
+source of the motive of Albertinelli's _Annunciation_. The colouring is
+more brilliant than any of the Frate's works before his visit to Venice.
+Vasari says that in this picture Giorgione himself could not have
+surpassed him in brilliancy. The saints, although nearly level with the
+ground, are given celestial rank by the cherubs and clouds below them.
+Fra Bartolommeo was dissatisfied with his angels, which seemed merely
+lovely children, and seeking other forms, he thought to picture them
+better under shapes which at a distance seem only clouds, but nearer are
+full of angels' faces, as in the _S. Bernard_. But this idea, not having
+aesthetic beauty, was also abandoned. [Footnote: Padre Marchese, _I
+Puristi ed Accademici_.]
+
+The monks of S. Pietro at Murano did not hasten to claim their picture,
+but sent two friars to negotiate about the price; they failed to agree,
+and the work is now in the Church of S. Romano in Lucca.
+
+Lucca has another exquisite picture of the same year in the Cathedral
+of S. Martino, a _Madonna and Child_--a lovely ideal of joyful
+infancy--beneath a veil suspended above her head by two angels. S. John
+Baptist and S. Stephen support this airy composition like pillars, their
+figures showing in strong relief against the dark shades; the whole
+picture is intensely soft, and yet the outlines are perfectly clear.
+This is valued at sixty ducats in the Libri di San Marco.
+
+Next followed the _Virgin and Child with four Saints_, in S. Marco,
+which is so fine that it has been taken for a Raphael, although, owing
+to the use of lamp-black, it has now become very much darkened.
+
+The _Holy Family_ which he painted for Filippo di Averardo Salviati,
+and which is now in Earl Cowper's collection at Panshanger, is an almost
+Raphaelesque work, and attains the greatest excellence in art. The
+composition is his favourite triangle, touched in with the flowing lines
+of the mother seated on the ground with the two children before her. S.
+Joseph is in the background. The greatest softness of flesh tints must
+have been perceptible when new, for, "in spite of the abrasions produced
+by time, the delicate tones brought out by transparent glazes fused one
+over another are apparent." The landscape with an echo subject of
+the flight into Egypt is thought by Crowe and Cavalcaselle to be by
+Albertinelli.
+
+In 1510 the partners had a large order from Giuliano da Gagliano, who,
+on the 2nd November, 1510, and 14th January, 1511, paid, in two rates,
+the sum of 154 ducats. The picture, which is Fra Bartolommeo's own
+painting, unfortunately cannot be traced.
+
+In 1511 a long list of works are enumerated--a _Nativity_, valued two
+ducats, a _Christ bearing the Cross_, and an _Annunciation_, sold to the
+Gonfaloniere for six ducats--pictures which are dispersed in England,
+Pavia, &c.; but the masterpiece of the time is the _Marriage of S.
+Catherine_, now in the Louvre. The Florentine government bought it for
+300 ducats in 1512, to present to Jacques Hurault, Bishop of Autun, who
+came to Florence as envoy of Louis XII. He left it to his cathedral
+at Autun, from whence, at the Revolution, it passed to the Louvre.
+[Footnote: Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, lib. iii. ch. iv. p. 77. Crowe
+and Cavalcaselle, _History of Painting_, vol. iii. chap. xiii. p. 452.]
+Before it was sent away, Fra Bartolommeo made a replica of it, which
+is now in the Pitti Palace. There is his favourite canopy supported by
+angels; in this case they are beautifully foreshortened. The Virgin is
+seated on a pedestal, holding by one arm an exquisitely moulded child
+Jesus of about four years old, who is espousing S. Catherine of Siena,
+kneeling at His feet on the left. A semicircle of saints group on each
+side of the Virgin, and two angels, with musical instruments, are at
+her feet; the upturned face of one is exquisitely foreshortened. The
+S. George in armour is a powerful figure; and in S. Bartholomew, on
+the left, is the same grand feeling which he afterwards brought to
+perfection in S. Mark. The grace of the Virgin's figure is not to be
+surpassed; if Raphael's Madonnas have more sentiment, this has more
+dignified grace. He has remembered Leonardo's precept, "that the two
+figures of a group should not look the same way"; the contrast of the
+flowing lines in these two forms is very lovely. The same contrast of
+lines, and yet balance of form, is carried out in the two S. Catherines
+who form the pyramid on each side of her, and in the varied characters
+of the encircling group of saints. The deleterious use of lampblack has
+spoiled the colouring; it, moreover, hangs in a bad light at the Pitti
+Palace.
+
+The original subject at the Louvre differs only in a few particulars
+from this--the Virgin's hand is on the child's head instead of his arm,
+and there are trifling differences in the grouping of the saints,
+the semicircle being more rigidly kept. In this the flesh is thin
+and uncracked, seeming imbedded in the surrounding colours; the lake
+draperies are laid so thinly on the light ground, that the sketch can be
+seen through the colour. [Footnote: Eastlake, _Materials for a History
+of Oil Painting_, vol. ii. chap. iv. Crowe and Cavalcaselle speak of the
+two paintings as unconnected with each other, and mention the Pitti one
+as having unaccountably returned there after having been given to some
+bishop. Is it not possible that the gift to a bishop refers to the
+painting in the Louvre, and that the other is the replica spoken of by
+Vasari, vol. ii. p. 452?]
+
+There is a fine painting in the church of S. Caterina of Pisa, in
+the chapel of the Mastiani family, Michele Mastiani having given the
+commission, and paid thirty ducats, in October, 1511. It represents
+the _Madonna and Child_ seated on a base; the action is quiet and
+yet vivacious; she is supported on each side by S. Peter and S. Paul,
+figures as large as life, and even more noble than the ones in Rome. The
+colouring has been much injured by a fire in the seventeenth century,
+but is robust and harmonious. It is dated 1511.
+
+On the 26th of November, 1510, Fra Bartolommeo had a commission from
+Pier Soderini, then Gonfaloniere, to paint a picture for the Council
+Hall. This was an unfortunate order; for Michelangelo and Leonardo da
+Vinci had both been commissioned, neither of them finishing the works.
+Fra Bartolommeo's forms the third uncompleted painting; it exists still
+in the form of a half prepared picture, the design being only shadowed
+in monochrome, and this in spite of the payment on account of 100 gold
+ducats in October, 1513. [Footnote: See Padre Marchese, _Memorie_,
+documenti 5 and 6, vol ii. p. 603.] The reason of this is difficult
+to assign, but it might lie in the fact that in 1512 Pier Soderini was
+deposed and exiled by Giuliano de' Medici, who assumed the government.
+Another reason may have been the failure of Fra Bartolommeo's health
+after his journey to Rome.
+
+In 1512 Santi Pagnini came back from Siena as prior of S. Marco, and he
+having no love for Albertinelli, and perhaps a too jealous affection
+for the artist Monk, caused the partnership to be dissolved, much to
+Mariotto's sorrow. The stock, of which a full list is given by Padre
+Marchese, was divided, each taking the pictures in which they had most
+to do. The properties--amongst which were the lay figures, easels,
+casts, sketches, blocks of porphyry to grind colours on, &c. [Footnote:
+Padre Marchese, vol. ii. pp. 184, 185.]--were to be left for Fra
+Bartolommeo's use till his death, when they were to be divided between
+his heirs and Albertinelli.
+
+Mariotto returned disheartened to paint in his solitary studio. A
+specimen of this period is the _Adam and Eve_, now at Castle Howard,
+which is said to have been sketched in by Fra Bartolommeo. Eve stands
+beneath the serpent-entwined tree, hesitating between the demon's
+temptations and Adam's persuasions; the feeling and action are perfectly
+expressed, the landscape is minute, but has plenty of atmosphere and
+good colouring. In the same collection is a _Sacrifice of Abraham_, in
+his best style. The drawing of the father, reluctantly holding his knife
+to the throat of the boy, is extremely true. Munich possesses a fine
+_Annunciation_. Characteristic saints support the composition on each
+side, the nude S. Sebastian being a markworthy study; an angel at his
+side presents the palm of martyrdom. The picture has suffered much from
+bad cleaning.
+
+In March, 1513, Albertinelli was commissioned by the Medici to paint
+their arms, in honour of Leo X.'s elevation to the papacy. He made a
+fine allegorical circular picture, in which the arms were supported by
+the figures of Faith, Hope, and Charity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CLOSE OF LIFE. A.D. 1514--1517.
+
+
+It is probable that the dissolution of partnership marked the time of
+Fra Bartolommeo's visit to Rome. Fra Mariano Fetti, once a lay brother
+of S. Marco, who had gone over to the Medici after Savonarola's death,
+and had kept so much in favour with Pope Leo X. as to obtain the office
+of the Seals (del Piombo), [Footnote: An office for appending seals
+to papal documents. Fra Mariano Fetti was elected to it in 1514, after
+Bramante, the architect; Sebastiano del Piombo succeeded him.] was
+pleased to be considered a patron of art; and welcoming Fra Bartolommeo
+to Rome, he gave him a commission for two large figures of S. Peter and
+S. Paul for his church of S. Silvestro. The cartoons of these pictures
+are now in the Belle Arti of Florence; they are grand and majestic
+figures, admirably draped. S. Peter holds his keys and a book; S.
+Paul rests on his sword. In executing them in colour, he made some
+improvements, especially in the head and hand of S. Peter, but he did
+not remain long enough in Rome to finish them. "The colour of the first
+(S. Peter) is reddish and rather opaque, the shadows of the head being
+taken up afresh, and the extremities being by another painter. The head
+of the second (S. Paul) is corrected ... but the tone is transparent,
+and the execution exclusively that of Fra Bartolommeo. Whoever may have
+been employed on the S. Peter, we do not fancy Raphael to have been
+that person." This is the opinion of Crowe and Cavalcaselle, [Footnote:
+_History of Painting_, vol. iii. chap. xiii. p. 460.] who, however, seem
+to have little faith in any works of the Frate at Rome. Against this we
+have the chronicles of quaint old Vasari and Rosini; besides Baldinucci
+(ch. iv. p. 83), who says, "Raphael gave great testimony of his esteem
+when, in after years, he employed his own brush in Rome to finish a work
+begun by Fra Bartolommeo in that city and left imperfect."
+
+His reason for leaving it imperfect was that of ill-health, the air of
+Rome not agreeing with him. It seems he brought home _malaria_, which
+never entirely left his system, the low fever returning every year, and
+being only mitigated by a change to mountain air. He was well enough
+at times to resume painting, but never in full health again. That very
+summer he was sent to the Hospice of Sta. Maria Maddalena in Pian di
+Mugnone, "dove pure non stette in ozio," [Footnote: Rosini, _Storia
+della Pittura_, chap, xxvii. p. 245.] where he did not remain idle.
+The Hospice stands on a high hill, just the place for Roman fever to
+disappear as if by magic for a time, and the patient, relieved of
+his lassitude, set to work with energy, aided by Fra Paolino and Fra
+Agostino. Many of his frescoes still remain, one of which is a beautiful
+_Madonna_, on the wall of the infirmary, which has since been sawn away
+from the wall and placed in the students' chapel in San Marco, Florence.
+[Footnote: A document of the Hospice records these paintings, and dates
+them 10th of July, 1514. Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, &c., vol. ii. p.
+610.]
+
+He returned to Florence for the winter, and with renewed vigour produced
+his _San Sebastian_, a splendid study from the nude, which shows the
+influence upon him of Michelangelo's paintings in Rome. The picture
+was hung in San Marco, but its influence not proving elevating to the
+sensuous minds of the Florentines, it was removed to the chapter-house,
+and Gio Battista della Palla, the dealer who bought so many of the best
+pictures of the time, purchased it to send to the King of France. Its
+subsequent fate is not known, although Monsieur Alaffre, of Toulouse,
+boasts of its possession. He says his father bought three paintings
+which, in the time of the Revolution, had been taken from the chapel of
+a royal villa near Paris [Footnote: Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, &c., vol.
+ii. note p. 119.], one of which is the _S. Sebastian_. In design and
+attitude it corresponds to the one described by Vasari, the saint being
+in a niche, surrounded by a double cornice. The left arm is bound; the
+right, with its cord hanging, is upraised in attitude of the faith, so
+fully expressed in the beautiful face. Three arrows are fixed in the
+body, which is nude except a slight veil across the loins; an angel,
+also nude, holds the palm to him. Connoisseurs do not think this
+painting equal in merit to the other works of Fra Bartolommeo. It is
+true it may have been overrated at the time, for the Frate's chief
+excellence lay in the grandeur of his drapery; the test of authenticity
+for a nude study from him would lie more in the colouring and handling
+than in form.
+
+In the early part of 1515 Fra Bartolommeo went to pay his old friend
+Santi Pagnini, the Oriental scholar, a visit at the convent of San
+Romano, in Lucca, of which he was now prior, passing by Pistoja on
+February 17th to sign a contract for an altar-piece to be placed in the
+church of San Domenico--a commission from Messer Jacopo Panciatichi. The
+price was fixed at 100 gold ducats, and the subject to be the Madonna
+and Child, with SS. Paul, John Baptist, and Sebastian. On his arrival
+at Lucca he was soon busy with his great work, the _Madonna della
+Misericordia_, for the church of San Romano. The composition of this
+is full and harmonious. A populace of all ages and conditions, grouped
+around the throne of the Madonna, beg her prayers; she, standing up,
+seems to gather all their supplications in her hands and offer them up
+to heaven, from which, as a vision, Christ appears from a mass of
+clouds in act of benediction. Amongst the crowd of supplicants are some
+exquisite groups. Sublime inspiration and powerful expression are shown
+in the whole work. On his return he stayed again at Pistoja, where
+he painted a fresco of a _Madonna_ on a wall of the convent of San
+Domenico; this, which has since been sawn from the wall, is at present
+in the church of the same convent, and though much injured, is a very
+light and tender bit of colouring and expression. It would seem that the
+altar-piece for the same church, spoken of above, was never finished, as
+no traces of it are to be found.
+
+In October, 1515, we again find him at Pian di Mugnone; no doubt the
+summer heats had induced a return of his fever. Here, again improving in
+health, he painted a charming _Annunciation_ in fresco, full of life and
+eagerness on the part of the angel, and joy on the Virgin. He did not
+remain long, for before the end of the autumn he returned to visit the
+home of his youth and see his paternal uncle, Giusto, at Lastruccio,
+near Prato. We can imagine the meeting between him and his relatives,
+and how the little Paolo, son of Vito, being told to guess who he was,
+said, "Bis Zio Bartolommeo," [Footnote: Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, &c.,
+vol. ii. chap. vii. pp. 139, 140.] for which he was much applauded.
+And when all the country relatives hoped to see him again soon, how the
+Frate said that would be uncertain, because the King of France had sent
+for him, and with what awe and family pride they would have looked
+at him! But instead of going to France for the glory of art, he
+was returning to Florence to sorrow. His life-long friend, Mariotto
+Albertinelli, had been brought home on a litter from La Quercia, near
+Viterbo, and now lay on his death-bed; and what his life had lacked in
+religion, the prayers of his friend would go far to atone for at his
+death.
+
+While Fra Bartolommeo had been ailing, Albertinelli had also paid his
+visit to the great city, and seen the two great rivals there. He went
+from Viterbo, where he had been to finish colouring a work of the
+Frate's left unfinished, and also to paint some frescoes in the convent
+of La Quercia, near that town. Being so near Borne, he was seized with a
+great desire to see it, and left his picture for that purpose. Probably
+Fra Bartolommeo had given him an introduction to his friend and
+patron, for Fra Mariano Fetti gave Albertinelli a commission to paint a
+_Marriage of S. Catherine_ for his church, which he completed, and then
+left Rome at once. Nothing is known of the impressions made on him by
+the works of the two great masters, and unfortunately his death occurred
+too soon after for his own style to have given any evidence of their
+influence.
+
+A Giostra, at Viterbo, proved a very strong attraction to his
+pleasure-loving mind. This "Giostra," which the translators of Vasari
+seem to find so "obscure," [Footnote: Vasari's _Lives_, vol. ii. p.
+470.] was no doubt one of those festivals revived by the Medici, in
+which mounted cavaliers ride with a lance at a suspended Saracen's head,
+striking it at full gallop. Desirous of appearing to advantage before
+the eyes of her whom he had elected his queen, he forgot his mature age,
+and rushed into the jousts with all the energies of a youth, but alas!
+fell ill from over-exertion. Fearing the malarious air was not good
+for him, he had a litter made, and was taken to Florence, where Fra
+Bartolommeo placed himself at his bedside, soothing his last moments,
+and leading him as far heavenward as he could. When Albertinelli died,
+on the 5th of November, 1515, his friend followed him to an honourable
+interment in S. Piero Maggiore.
+
+After Albertinelli's death, the Frate soared to greater heights of
+genius than before.
+
+The year 1516 marks the birth of his grandest masterpieces, first the
+picture in the Pitti Palace called by Cavalcaselle a _Resurrection_, but
+which is more truly an allegorical impersonation of the Saviour. It was
+ordered by a rich merchant, Salvadore Billi, to place in a chapel
+which Pietro Roselli had adorned with marbles in the church of the
+"Annunciata." He paid 100 ducats in gold for it.
+
+In its original state the picture was a complete allegory of _Christ
+as the centre of Religion_, between two prophets in heaven, and four
+apostles, two at each side--beneath him two angels support the world.
+The prophets have been removed, and are placed in the Tribune of the
+Uffizi; thus the picture as it stands loses half its meaning. The Christ
+is a fine nude figure standing in a niche, and in it Fra Bartolommeo has
+solved the problem of obtaining complete relief almost in monochrome, so
+little do the lights of the flesh tints, and the warm yellowish tinge of
+the background differ from each other. All the positive colour is in
+the drapery of the saints, one in red and green, and another in red and
+blue. The two angels are exquisitely drawn, and contrast well in their
+natural innocence with the sentimental pair in Raphael's _Madonna of the
+Baldacchino_ on the same wall of the Pitti Palace.
+
+San Marco was rich in frescoes of the _Madonna and Child_, two of which
+are still in the chapel of the convent, and two in the Belle Arti. Some
+of these are charming in expression, the children clinging round the
+mother's neck in a true childish _abandon_ of affection. What a tender
+feeling these monk artists had for the spirit of maternity! Perhaps by
+being debarred from the contemplation of maternal love in its humanity,
+they more clearly comprehended its divinity. Look at the little
+round-backed nestling child in Fra Angelico's _Madonna della Stella_,
+imperfect as it is in form, the whole spirit of love is in it. He does
+not give only the mother-love for the child, but the child-love for
+the mother, which is more divine, and the same feeling is seen in the
+_Madonna_ of Fra Bartolommeo.
+
+This year, 1516, also marks a journey to a hermitage of his order at
+Lecceto, between Florence and Pisa. Here he painted a _Deposition from
+the Cross_ on the wall of the Hospice, and two heads of Christ on two
+tiles above the doors.
+
+A great many of his works are in private collections in Florence; one of
+the most lovely is the _Pieta_, painted for Agnolo Doni, and now in the
+Corsini Gallery at Rome.
+
+All this time the great painting of the _Enthronement of the Virgin_,
+ordered by Pier Soderini, before his exile, was still unfinished. He
+seems to have taken it in hand again about this time, but being attacked
+with another access of fever, again left it, and the painting, shadowed
+in with black, remains in the Uffizi. Lanzi writes of it that, imperfect
+as it is, it may be regarded as a true lesson in art, and bears the
+same relation to painting as the clay model to the finished statue,
+the genius of the inventor being impressed upon it. Messrs. Crowe and
+Cavalcaselle [Footnote: _History of Painting_, vol. iii. chap. xiii.
+p. 455.] call this a _Conception_, but Vasari's old name of the _Patron
+Saints of Florence_ seems to fit it best. S. John the Baptist, S.
+Reparata, S. Zenobio, &c., stand in an adoring group around the heavenly
+powers, S. Anna above the Virgin and infant Christ forming a
+charming pyramidal group in the midst. The whole thing is one of Fra
+Bartolommeo's richest compositions. The centre of the three monks on the
+left is said to be a portrait of Fra Bartolommeo himself, and to be
+the original from which the only known portrait of him is taken (_see
+Frontispiece_). Fra Bartolommeo left another work also unfinished, an
+apotheosis of a saint, which is now at Panshanger. This is supposed
+to have been a small ideal prepared for a picture to celebrate the
+canonisation of S. Antonino, which Leo X. had almost promised the
+brethren of S. Marco on his triumphant entry in 1515. The work, if
+it had been painted in the larger form, would have been a perfect
+masterpiece of composition, "a very Beethoven symphony in colour," if
+we may judge from the sketch at Panshanger, where a living crowd groups
+round the bier of the archbishop, and life, earnestness, harmony, and
+richness, are all intense.
+
+So ill was Fra Bartolommeo in 1517 that he was ordered to take the baths
+at San Filippo, thence he went for the last time to Pian di Mugnone,
+where he painted a _Vision of the Saviour to Mary Magdalen_, above the
+door of the chapel. The two figures, nearly life-size, are at the door
+of the cave sepulchre. Mary has just recognised her Lord, and in her
+ecstasy flings herself forward on her knees before him. The Saviour is a
+dignified figure semi-nude, with a white veil wrapped around him.
+
+In the Pitti Palace, a charming _Pieta_ of Fra Bartolommeo's occupies a
+place near the _Pieta_ of Andrea del Sarto, the two pictures forming
+a most interesting contrast of style. The kneeling Virgin and S.
+John support the head of the prostrate Saviour, S. Catherine and Mary
+Magdalen weep at his feet, the latter in an agony of grief crouches
+prone on the ground hiding her face. The colouring is extremely rich,
+broad masses of full-tone melting softly into deep shadows. The handling
+in the flesh-tones of the dead Saviour, as well as the modelling of
+form, are most masterly. It is generally supposed that this was the
+picture which Bugiardini is said to have coloured after the master's
+death; but there is much divergence among Italian authors both as to
+whether this was the painting spoken of, and also as to the meaning
+of Vasari's words, he using the phrase "finished" in one place, and
+"coloured" in another. For charm of colouring and depth of expression,
+the _Pieta_ is the most lovely of all the Frate's works; therefore
+Bugiardini who was _mediocre_, could not have outdone his great master.
+It was not _coloured_ by him. Bocchi [Footnote: Bocchi, _Bellezze di
+Firenze_, p. 304.] says there were two other figures, S. Peter and S.
+Paul, in the picture, where a meaningless black shadow stretches across
+the background; but they were erased by the antique restorer because
+they were "troppo deboli." Is it not likely that if Bugiardini had any
+hand in the work, it was to finish these figures?
+
+Returning in the autumn to Florence, Fra Bartolommeo caught a severe
+cold, the effects of which were heightened by eating fruit, and after
+four days' extreme illness he died on October 8th, 1517, aged 42.
+
+The monks felt his death intensely, and buried him with great honour in
+San Marco.
+
+He left to art the most valuable legacy possible--a long list of
+masterpieces in which religious feeling is expressed in the very
+highest language. In all his works there is not a line or tint which
+transgresses against either the sentiment of devotion, or the rules of
+art. He stands for ever, almost on a level with the great trio of the
+culmination, "possessing Leonardo's grace of colour and more than
+his industry, Michelangelo's force with more softness, and Raphael's
+sentiment with more devotion;" yet with just the inexpressible want of
+that supernatural genius which would have placed him above them all. His
+legacy to the world is a series of lessons from the very first setting
+of his ideal on paper to its finished development. The germ exists in
+the charcoal sketches at the Belle Arti and Uffizi; the under-shadowing
+of the subject is seen in the _Patron Saints_ at the Uffizi.
+
+Many of his drawings are not to be traced. Some were used by Fra
+Paolino, his pupil, who at his death passed them to Suor Plautilla
+Nelli, a nun in Sta. Caterina, Florence (born 1523, died 1587). When
+Baldinucci wrote his work, he said 500 of these were in the possession
+of Cavaliere Gaburri.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+PART I.
+
+SCHOLARS OF FRA BARTOLOMMEO.
+
+
+Of these, little more than the names have come down to us. Vasari speaks
+of Benedetto Cianfanini, Gabbriele Rustici, and Fra Paolo Pistojese;
+Padre Marchese mentions two monks, Fra Andrea and Fra Agostino. Of
+these, the two first never became proficient, and have left no works
+behind them. Fra Andrea seems to have been more a journeyman than
+scholar, being employed to prepare the panels and lay on the gilding.
+Fra Agostino assisted his master, and Fra Paolo in the subordinate parts
+of a few frescoes, especially at Luco in the Mugnone. Fra Paolo is
+the most known, but chiefly as a far-off imitator of Fra Bartolommeo,
+without his mellowness of execution. His pictures are mostly from his
+master's designs, which were left him as a legacy, and this ensures a
+good composition.
+
+He was born at Pistoja in 1490; his father, Bernardino d' Antonio del
+Signoraccio, a second-rate artist, taught him the first principles
+of art. His knowledge of drawing caused him to be noticed by Fra
+Bartolommeo, when at a very early age he entered the order. He was
+removed from Prato to San Marco, Florence, in 1503; and here he found
+another friend who assisted his artistic tendencies. This was Fra
+Ambrogio della Robbia, [Footnote: Padre Marchese, Memorie, &c., lib. in.
+chap. ii. p. 246.] who taught him to model in clay; a specimen of his
+work exists in the Church of Sta. Maddalena in Pian di Mugnone, where
+are two statues of S. Domenico and Mary Magdalen by his hand.
+
+His best work is a _Crucifixion_ at Siena, dated 1516, which has been
+thought to be Fra Bartolommeo's; but though that master was asked to go
+and paint it as a memorial of a certain Messer Cherubino Ridolfo,
+his many occupations prevented his accepting the commission, and his
+disciples, Fra Paolo and Fra Agostino, went in his place. [Footnote:
+Padre Marchese, Memorie, &c., lib. in. chap. ii. p. 251.] Possibly the
+master supplied the design, which is very harmonious. The Virgin and S.
+John stand on each side of the cross, and Saint Catherine of Siena and
+Mary Magdalen are prostrate before it. One or two of the female saints
+are pleasing, but the nude figure of Christ is hard, exaggerated, and
+faulty in drawing.
+
+The artists got thirty-five lire for the work, though the record in the
+archives allows that it was worth more. There is an _Assumption_ in the
+Belle Arti of Florence, of which the design is Fra Bartolommeo's, but
+the colouring Fra Paolo's. It was painted for the Dominican monks at
+Santa Maria del Sasso, near Bibbiena. The colouring is hard and weak,
+the shadows heavy, and not fused well in the half tints. Two monks on
+the left are tolerably life-like, probably they were drawn from living
+models; the S. Catherine on the right is very inferior.
+
+The Belle Arti also possesses a _Deposition from the Cross_, which Fra
+Bartolommeo had sketched out and left uncoloured at Pian di Mugnone. In
+1519 Fra Paolo finished it, and it presents the usual disparity between
+the composition and colouring, the former being good, the latter weak
+and crude. His best known works are a Nativity in the Palazzo Borghese,
+a _Madonna and Child with S. John Baptist_ in the Sciarra Colonna, also
+in Rome; a _Madonna and Child with S. John_ in the Corsini Gallery,
+Florence, and another of the same subject in the Antinori Palace. He
+painted also at San Gimignano, Pian di Mugnone, and Pistoja, and died of
+sunstroke in 1547.
+
+He had as a follower a Suor Plautilla Nelli, born 1523, daughter of a
+noble Florentine, Piero di Luca Nelli. She took the vows at the age
+of fourteen, in the convent of S. Caterina di Siena, in Via Larga (now
+Cavour), Florence. Her sister, Suor Petronilla, in the same convent,
+was a writer, and her life of Savonarola is still extant. Suor Plautilla
+taught herself to paint. Legend says, that in order to study the nude
+for a Christ, she drew from the corpse of a nun--which might account for
+the weak stiffness of her design. Fra Paolo, though there is no record
+of his having taught her, left her as a legacy the designs and cartoons
+of Fra Bartolommeo, one of which, the _Pieta_, she has evidently made
+use of in the painting in the Belle Arti. The grouping is that of the
+_Pieta_ of Fra Bartolommeo, now in the Pitti, of which she must have
+had the original sketch, for she has put in the two saints in the
+background, which have been painted out in that of the Frate, but we
+will give her the entire credit of the colouring, which is extremely
+crude; the contrasting blues and yellows are in inharmonious tones, the
+shading harsh, and the whole picture wanting in chiaroscuro. The Corsini
+Gallery, Florence, has a _Virgin and Child_ by her.
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+
+The scholars of Mariotto Albertinelli were much more important in the
+annals of art, the principal ones being Bugiardini, Francia Bigio,
+Visino, and Innocenza d' Imola.
+
+Giuliano Bugiardini should be called the assistant rather than the
+scholar of Albertinelli, being older than his master. He was born in
+1471 in a suburb outside the Via Faenza, Florence, and was placed in
+the shop of Domenico Ghirlandajo, where his acquaintance with
+Michelangelo--begun in the Medici Gardens--ripened into intimacy, and
+he was employed by him in the Sistine Chapel. Giuliano had that happily
+constructed mind which, with an ineffable content in its own works,
+will pass through life perfectly happy in the feeling that in reaching
+mediocrity it has achieved success. Not only wanting talent to produce
+better works, he lacked also the faculty of perceiving where his own
+were faulty, and having a great aptitude for copying the works of
+others, he felt himself as great as the original artists. Michelangelo
+was always amused with his naive self-conceit, and kept up a friendship
+with him for many years. He even went so far as to sit to Bugiardini for
+his likeness, at the request of Ottaviano de' Medici. Giuliano, having
+painted and talked nonsense for two hours, at last exclaimed, to his
+sitter's great relief, "Now, Michelangelo, come and look at yourself; I
+have caught your very expression." But what was Michelangelo's horror to
+see himself depicted with eyes which were neither straight nor a pair!
+The worthy artist looked from his work to the original, and declared he
+could see no difference between them, on which Michelangelo, shrugging
+his shoulders, said, "It must be a defect of nature," and bade his
+friend go on with it. This charming portrait was presented to Ottaviano
+de' Medici, with that of _Pope Clement VII._, copied from Sebastian del
+Piombo, and is now in the Louvre. Bugiardini's works always take the
+style of other masters. There is a _Madonna_ in the Uffizi, and one
+in the Leipsic Museum, both in Leonardo's style, with his defects
+exaggerated. The former is a sickly woman in a sentimental attitude,
+the child rather heavy, the colouring is bright and well fused; he has
+evidently adopted the method which he had seen Albertinelli use in his
+studio.
+
+During a stay in Bologna he painted a _Madonna and Saints_ as an
+altar-piece for the church of S. Francesco, besides a _Marriage of S.
+Catherine_, now in the Bologna Pinacoteca. The composition of this is
+not without merit; the child Jesus seated on his mother's knees, gives
+the ring to S. Catherine, little S. John stands at the Virgin's feet, S.
+Anthony on her left. The colouring is less pleasing, the flesh tints too
+red and raw.
+
+A round picture in the Zambeccari Gallery, Bologna, shows him in
+Michelangelo's style. The Virgin is reading on a wooded bank, but looks
+up to see the infant Christ greet the approaching S. John Baptist; this
+is carefully, if rather hardly, painted. The lights in the Saviour's
+hair have been touched in with gold. The time of his stay in Bologna is
+uncertain, but in 1525 he was in Florence, and drawing designs for the
+Ringhiera with Andrea del Sarto. There is a document in the archives,
+proving that on October 5th, 1526 Bugiardini was paid twenty florins
+in gold for his share of the work. He obtained some rank as a portrait
+painter, in spite of his failure in that of Michelangelo; and had
+commissions from many of the celebrities of Florence. It was in original
+composition that his powers failed him. Messer Palla Rucellai ordered a
+picture from him of the _Martyrdom of S. Catherine_, which he began with
+the intention of making it a very fine work indeed. He spent several
+years in representing the wheels, the lightnings and fires in a
+sufficiently terrible aspect, but had to beg Michelangelo's assistance
+in drawing the men who were to be killed by those heavenly flames; his
+design was to have a row of soldiers in the foreground, all knocked down
+in different attitudes. His friend took up the charcoal and sketched
+in a splendid group of agonised nude figures; but these were beyond his
+power to shade and colour, and Tribolo made him a set of models in clay,
+in the attitudes given by Michelangelo, and from these he finished the
+work; but the great master's hand was never apparent in it. Bugiardini
+died at the age of seventy-five.
+
+Of Francesco Bigi, commonly called Francia Bigio or Franciabigio, so
+much is said in the following life of Andrea del Sarto, that a slight
+sketch will suffice here. He was the son of Cristofano, and was born in
+1482. His early studies were made in the Brancacci Chapel, and the
+Papal Hall--where he drew from the cartoons in 1505-6, and the studio
+of Mariotto Albertinelli, from which he passed to his partnership with
+Andrea del Sarto in 1509. Thus it is that his first style was marked by
+the influence of Mariotto and Fra Bartolommeo, while in his later works
+he approximated more to Andrea del Sarto.
+
+Two of his early paintings were placed in the church of S. Piero
+Maggiore, one a _Virgin and Child_ of great beauty. The infant clasps
+its arms round its mother's neck--a charming attitude--which suggests
+a playful effort to hide from the young S. John, who is running towards
+him, by nestling closer to the dearer resting place. The picture is now
+in the Uffizi and has been long known as _Raphael's Madonna del Pozzo_.
+[Footnote: Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _History of Painting_, vol. iii.
+chap. xv. p. 501.] No greater testimony to Francia Bigio's excellence
+can be given than the frequency of his works being mistaken for those of
+Raphael, but the influence of his contemporaries was always strong upon
+him. The _Annunciation_, painted for the same church, is also described
+by Vasari as a carefully designed work, though somewhat feeble in
+manner. The angel is lightly poised in air, the Virgin kneeling before a
+foreshortened building. The picture was lost sight of in the demolition
+of the church, but Crowe and Cavalcaselle [Footnote: Crowe and
+Cavalcaselle, _History of Painting_, Vol. iii. p. 500.] believe they
+have discovered it in a picture at Turin, the authorship of which is
+avowedly doubtful. They mention, however, a celestial group of the
+Eternal Father in a cherub-peopled cloud, sending his blessing in the
+form of a dove, with a ray of glory. Surely if this be the one described
+by Vasari [Footnote: Vasari, vol. iii. p. 336] so minutely, he would not
+have omitted a part of the subject so important to the picture.
+
+In 1509 we may presumably date the partnership with Andrea del Sarto,
+that being about the time when they began to work together in the
+Scalzo. Francia Bigio painted some frescoes in the church of S. Giobbe,
+behind the Servite Monastery. A _Visitation_ was in a tabernacle at the
+corner of the church, and subjects from Job's life on a pilaster within
+it: these have long ago disappeared. The altar-piece of the _Madonna
+and Job_, which he painted in oil for the same church, has been more
+fortunate, as it still exists in the Tuscan School in the Uffizi. Though
+much injured, it shows his earlier style. The _Calumny of Apelles_ in
+the same gallery is a curious picture. It is hard and dull in colouring,
+the prevailing tone being a heavy drab; there are several nude figures,
+of doubtful forms as to beauty of drawing, the flesh is painted in a
+smooth glazed style, without relief or tenderness.
+
+Francia Bigio shines more in fresco than in oil; his hardness is less
+apparent, and he gains in freedom and brilliance of colouring in the
+more congenial medium. The finest of his frescoes is, unfortunately,
+spoiled by his own hand, and remains as a memorial of his genius and
+hasty temper. I allude to the _Sposalizio_ (A.D. 1513) in the courtyard
+of the Servite church, where Andrea did his series of frescoes from the
+life of Filippo Benizzi. The composition is grand and carefully thought
+out, the colouring bright and pleasing; perhaps in emulating Andrea's
+luxurious style of drapery he has gone a little too far, and crowded
+the folds. The bridegroom is a noble figure, and shows in his face his
+gladness in the blossoming rod. A man in the foreground breaks a
+stick across his knees. The commentators of Vasari have taken this to
+emblematize the Roman Catholic legend of the Virgin having given rods to
+each of her suitors, and chosen him whose rod blossomed. Graceful women
+surround the Virgin, but there is perhaps a too marked sentimentality
+about these which suggests a striving after Raphael's style. There is,
+however, a great touch of nature in a mother with a naughty child, who
+sits crying on the ground, much to the mother's distress. Francia Bigio
+commenced this in Andrea's absence in France, which so excited his
+former comrade's emulation that he did his _Visitation_ in great haste,
+to get it uncovered as soon as Francia Bigio's. In fact, Andrea's works
+were ready by the date of the annual festa of the Servites, and the
+monks, being anxious to uncover all the new frescoes for that day, took
+upon them to remove the mattings from that of Francia Bigio as well,
+without his permission, for he wished to give a few more finishing
+touches. So angry was he, on arriving in the cloister, to see a crowd of
+people admiring his work in what he felt to be an imperfect condition,
+that in an excess of rage he mounted on the scaffolding which still
+remained, and, seizing a hammer, beat the head of the Madonna to pieces,
+and ruined the nude figure breaking the rod. The monks hastened to the
+scene in an uproar of remonstrance, the frantic artist's destructive
+hand was stayed by the bystanders, but so deep was his displeasure that
+he refused to restore the picture, and no other hand having touched
+it, the fresco remains to this day a fine work mutilated. It shows him
+artistically in his very best, and morally, at his worst, phase. In
+1518, while Andrea was in France, the monks of the Scalzo employed
+Francia Bigio to fill two compartments in their pretty little cloister,
+where Andrea had commenced his _Life of S. John Baptist_. These are
+spoken of more at length in the life of that master, who on his return
+took the work again in his own hands. In 1521 Bigio competed with Andrea
+and Pontormo, in the Medici Villa at Poggio a Cajano; Andrea's _Caesar
+receiving Tribute_ occupies one wall of the hall, and Francia Bigio's
+_Triumph of Cicero_ another. The subjects were selected by the
+historian, Messer Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera; it only remained for
+the artists to make the most of the chosen themes. Francia Bigio filled
+his background with a careful architectural perspective, and a crowd of
+muscular Romans are grouped before it. This also was left unfinished
+at the Pope's death, and Allori completed it in 1582. Francia Bigio,
+however, did many of the gilded decorations of the hall.
+
+In the Dresden Gallery is a work, Scenes from the Life of David, signed
+A. S., MDXXIII., and his monogram, a painting very much in the style of
+Andrea del Sarto's _Life of Joseph_. Reumont [Footnote: Life of Andrea
+del Sarto, p. 138 et seq.] claims it as the joint work of Andrea and
+Francia Bigio, founding his opinion on the letters A. S. before the
+date; but the letters mean only _Anno salutis_, and are used in very
+many of Francia Bigio's signed paintings. He had the commission from Gio
+Maria Benintendi in 1523. It is one of those curious pictures which have
+many scenes in one--a style which militates greatly against artistic
+unity. On the right is David's palace, on the left Uriah's; David is at
+his door watching Bathsheba and her maidens bathing. In the centre
+is the siege of Rabbah; another well-draped group represents David
+receiving Uriah's homage. In the foreground David gives wine to Uriah
+at a banquet. There is careful painting and ingenious composition, but
+a less finished manner of colouring than in Andrea's Joseph, which was
+painted about the same time for Pier Borgherini.
+
+Like Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, Francia Bigio fell off in his later style,
+partly because his ambition failed him, and also because he began to
+look on art as a means of livelihood--a motive which is certain death to
+high art.
+
+He was especially celebrated as a portrait painter, several of his works
+having been attributed to Raphael. Among these are one at the Louvre and
+one at the Pitti Palace, both portraits of a youth in tunic and black
+cap, with long hair flowing over his shoulders; one in the National
+Gallery, formerly in Mr. Fuller Maitland's collection; the portrait of a
+jeweller, dated A. S., MDXVI. in Lord Yarborough's gallery; that in the
+Berlin Museum, of a man sitting at a desk, dated 1522; and the likeness
+of Pier Francesco de Medici at Windsor--all of which bear Francia
+Bigio's monogram, often with the letters A. S. (_Anno salutis_) before
+the date. He died on January 14th, 1525.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+RIDOLFO GHIRLANDAJO. A.D. 1483--1560.
+
+
+RIDOLFO (DI DOMENICO) BIGORDI, called GHIRLANDAJO, &c., was born on the
+4th of January, 1483. Although not strictly a scholar, he is one of
+Fra Bartolommeo's principal followers. When quite a child he lost his
+father, the famous Domenico, who died of fever, on January 11th,
+1494; his mother and uncle Benedetto only lived a few years after;
+and Ridolfo, with his three sisters and two brothers, was left to the
+guardianship of his uncle Davide.
+
+Ridolfo was the only one who chose the family profession, and he became
+the fourth painter of the name of Ghirlandajo.
+
+Davide was not a perfect artist, although a good mosaicist, as his works
+in the cathedrals of Orvieto, Siena, and Florence show, but he was
+for many years Ridolfo's only instructor. As the boy grew up Ridolfo
+frequented those public schools of art before spoken of, the Brancacci
+Chapel, and the study of the cartoons in the Papal Hall. Here he secured
+the friendship not only of Granacci and Pier di Cosimo, but of Raphael
+himself, with whom he visited Fra Bartolommeo in his convent.
+
+Raphael permitted Ridolfo to assist him in a Madonna for Siena, and
+tried to persuade him to accompany him to Rome; but Ridolfo, like a true
+Florentine, declined to go "beyond sight of the Duomo."
+
+His first great picture was done in 1504 for the church of San Gallo.
+The subject was _Christ Searing His Cross_. His uncle Benedetto had
+laboured on a similar picture, now in the Louvre, but Ridolfo's is a
+great improvement on this; the composition is well balanced, full
+of force and animation, the weeping figures of the Maries and the
+solicitude of S. Veronica are very lifelike, although he has not
+entirely abolished his uncle's coarseness in the scowling, low-typed
+men. The Christ and the Virgin are, on the contrary, so refined as to
+induce the supposition that this force of contrast was intentional; the
+landscape is rather hard and crude in tone, the flesh tints smooth, and
+the handling similar to that of Credi.
+
+The original is now in Palazzo Antinori, Florence, but a replica, in
+which he was assisted by Michele, his favourite pupil and adopted son,
+is in Santo Spirito.
+
+Vasari speaks of a _Nativity_, painted for the Cistercian monks of
+Cestello; a beautiful composition, in which the Madonna adores the holy
+child, S. Joseph standing near her; S. Francis and S. Jerome kneel in
+adoration; the landscape was sketched from the hills near "La Vernia,"
+where S. Francis received the stigmata.
+
+Maselli says the picture was lost when the monastery changed hands, but
+Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle [Footnote: History of fainting, vol. in.
+chap. xvi. pp. 523, 524.] believe they have found it in the Hermitage at
+S. Petersburg, under Granacci's name. It is possible that the favourite
+pupil of his father and Ridolfo's own friend may have assisted him. The
+landscape is Raphaelesque, and might mark the time when that master
+and Fra Bartolommeo influenced his style. His best manner approached so
+nearly to that of the Frate, that had he continued he would have very
+nearly rivalled his excellence.
+
+His two masterpieces are now in the Uffizi; they were painted for
+the Brotherhood of S. Zenobio, 1510, to stand one on each side of
+Albertinelli's _Annunciation_. One is _S. Zenobio_ (the first bishop and
+patron saint of Florence) _restoring a dead child to life_; the other
+the _Funeral Procession of the Saint passing the Baptistery_, where an
+elm tree, which had been withered, put forth fresh leaves as the coffin
+of the bishop touched it. A marble column, with a bronze tree in relief
+on it, stands on the spot as a memorial of this miracle. In these two
+works Ridolfo Ghirlandajo proved the power which was in him, but they
+are the culmination of his art; he never surpassed, or indeed equalled
+them again. His richness of colouring and deep relief equalled that of
+the Frate, the animation and expression rivalled Andrea del Sarto. In
+the first picture, the eagerness of the crowd, the intense feeling of
+the mother, in whom grief for the dead child seems almost greater
+than the hope of his resuscitation, the sturdy, solid character of the
+Florentines of the Republic, are all given with a masterly hand, while a
+rich blending of colour fuses the animated crowd in a harmonious unison.
+In the latter, grandeur and dignity mark the group of ecclesiastics
+which surrounds the archbishop's bier, the full solid falls of their
+drapery show that he had well studied his father's works.
+
+Ridolfo's brothers became monks, Don Bartolommeo lived in the
+Camaldoline Monastery of the Angeli, which Ridolfo beautified with many
+works. Paolo Uccelli had adorned the Loggia with frescoed stories from
+the life of S. Benedict. Ridolfo added two to the series. In one the
+Saint is at table with two angels, waiting for S. Romano to send his
+bread from the grotto, but the devil has cut the cord and taken it.
+
+Another is _S, Benedict investing a youth with the habit of the order_.
+In the church of the same monastery he painted a beautiful _Madonna and
+Child, with Angels_, above the holy water vase, and _S. Romualdo with
+the Camaldolese Hermitage in his Hand_, in a lunette in the cloister.
+All these were done as a brotherly gift, and after they were finished,
+the abbot, Don Andrea Dossi, gave him a commission to paint a _Last
+Supper_ in the refectory, which he did, placing the portrait of the
+abbot in the corner.
+
+Ridolfo, like his father, regarded art rather as a means of livelihood
+than with any aesthetic feelings, and this is probably the reason of his
+never attaining true excellence. His "bottega" was really a shop where
+any one might order a work of art, or of artisanship, and he gave as
+much attention to painting a banner for a procession as to composing an
+altar-piece. He had a great many assistants, whom he called on for help
+in various undertakings. They assisted him to prepare the Medici
+Halls for the reception of Pope Leo X., and later for the marriages
+of Giuliano and Lorenzo, not disdaining to paint scenes for the dramas
+which were then given. He painted banners, and designed costumes for the
+processions of the "potenze," a festive company, the origin of which is
+uncertain, but dating certainly from the Middle Ages. Each quarter of
+the city had an emperor, lords, and dignitaries, each of whom carried
+his banner or emblazonment. Grand processions, tournaments, and feasts
+were held once a year, on S. John's Day, by the potenze.
+
+Having assisted at the triumphs and marriages of the Medici princes, he
+also furnished the funeral pomp and magnificence on the deaths of the
+brothers, that of Giuliano occurring in 1516, of Lorenzo 1519.
+
+Lucratively it answered his purpose; the Medici gave him great honour;
+he was well paid by them, and got the commission to decorate the Chapel
+of the Palazzo Vecchio--a very good specimen of his fresco painting, in
+which he never reached his father's excellence, although in oil he far
+surpassed him. The chapel is small; the groined roof is covered with
+emblematical designs on a blue ground, a Trinity in the midst with
+angels bearing symbols of the passions around. The apostles and
+evangelists surround this, and the principal wall has a larger fresco of
+the _Annunciation_--a rather conventional rendering.
+
+Commissions flowed in on him to such a degree, that although he
+had fifteen children, he lived to amass money and lands, to see his
+daughters well married, and his sons prosperous merchants trading to
+distant lands. He died on the 6th of June, 1561, and lies with his
+forefathers in the church of S. Maria Novella.
+
+
+
+
+ANDREA D'AGNOLO,
+
+CALLED ANDREA DEL SARTO.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+YOUTH AND EARLY WORKS. A.D. 1487-1511.
+
+
+Andrea Del Sarto is a curious instance of the vital power of art, which,
+like a flower forcing its way to the light through walls or rocks, will
+find expression in spite of obstacles.
+
+Andrea the painter, "senza errori," was an artist in spite of lowering
+home influences, of want of encouragement in his patrons--for his
+greatest works only brought the smallest remuneration--and even in
+spite of his own nature, which was material, wanting in high aims, and
+deficient in ideality; yet his name lives for ever as a great master,
+and his works rank close to those of the leaders of the Renaissance.
+
+In looking at them one sighs even in the midst of admiration, thinking
+that if the hand which produced them had been guided by a spark of
+divine genius instead of the finest talent, what glorious works they
+would have been! The truth is that Andrea's was a receptive, rather
+than an original and productive mind. His art was more imitative than
+spontaneous, and this forms perhaps the difference between talent and
+genius. The art of his time sunk into his mind, and was reproduced.
+He lived precisely at the time of the culmination of art, when all the
+highest masters were bringing forth their grandest works; therefore he
+could not do otherwise than to follow the best examples.
+
+He gathered the experience of all--the force of Michelangelo, the
+handling of Leonardo, the sentiment of Raphael, so blending them as to
+form a style seemingly his own, and in execution following closely on
+their excellence.
+
+In Giotto's or Masaccio's case the master created the art; in Andrea's
+it was the art of the age which made the artist.
+
+The question of Andrea del Sarto's birth is a mooted one. Biadi dates
+it 1478, but the register he quotes is both vague and doubtful. He
+also tells a curious story of his Flemish origin. Signor Milanesi has
+deduced, from the archives of Florence, an authentic pedigree from which
+we learn that his remote ancestors were peasants, first at Buiano,
+near Fiesole, and later at S. Ilario, near Montereggi. His grandfather,
+Francesco, being a linen weaver, came to live nearer Florence; his
+father, Agnolo, son of Francesco, followed the trade of a tailor--hence
+Andrea's sobriquet, "del Sarto"--he took a house in Via Gualfonda, in
+Florence, about 1487, with his wife Constanza, and here Andrea was born,
+he being the eldest of a family of five--three girls and two boys. From
+the tax papers of a few years later it is proved that Andrea was born
+in 1487. His full name is Andrea d'Agnolo di Francesco. It is by mistake
+that he has been called Vannucchi.
+
+His parents were young, his father being only twenty-seven years of
+age at Andrea's birth. They lived at that time in Val Fonda, where
+Albertinelli had his shop, but in 1504 they removed to the popolo, or
+parish, of S. Paolo. Boys were not allowed to be idle in those days, but
+were apprenticed at an early age; thus Andrea, like most artists of his
+time, was bound to a goldsmith. It would be interesting to investigate
+the great influence of the guild of goldsmiths on the art of the
+Renaissance. The reason why youths who showed a talent for design were
+entered in that guild is easy to assign--it was one of the "greater"
+guilds, that of the painters being a lesser one, and merged in the "Arte
+degli Speziali." At seven years old he left the school where he had
+learned to read and write, and entered his very youthful apprenticeship;
+but he showed so much more aptitude for the designing than for the
+executive part of his profession that _Giovanni Barile_, who frequented
+the bottega, was induced to counsel his being trained especially as
+a painter, offering himself as instructor. If Andrea, a contadino by
+birth, an artisan by education, was not originally of the most refined
+nature, his artistic training did not go far towards refining him.
+Giovanni Barile was a coarse painter and a rough man; he had, however,
+generosity enough to see that the boy was worthy of better teaching, and
+got him entered in the bottega of Piero di Cosimo, who had attained
+a good rank as a colourist, his eccentricities possibly adding to his
+reputation.
+
+Accordingly in 1498, Andrea being then eleven years of age, a life of
+earnest study began. Piero di Cosimo, odd and misanthropic as he was,
+had yet a true appreciation of talent, and showed an earnest interest
+in his pupil, giving him--with plenty of queer treatment--a thorough
+training. "He was not allowed to make a line which was not perfect"
+[Footnote: Rosini, _Storia della Pittura_, chap. xvii. p. 40.] while
+in Piero's school. But excellent as his art teaching may have been, the
+boy's morale could not have been raised more here than under the rough
+but good-natured Barile. We have seen Piero di Cosimo in his youth, the
+serious, absent young man, who never joked with his juniors in Cosimo
+Roselli's shop; we see him now, with his youthful oddities hardened into
+eccentricities, and his reserve deepened to misanthropy. No woman's hand
+softened and refined his house, no cleansing broom was allowed within
+his door, and no gardener's hand cleared the weeds or pruned the vines
+in his garden. He so believed in nature unassisted that he took his
+meals without the intervention of a cook. When the fire was lighted to
+boil his size or glue he would cook fifty or sixty eggs and set them
+apart in a basket, to which he had recourse when the pangs of hunger
+compelled him. All this was morally very bad for a boy so young. And
+then woe betide the poor little fellow if he whistled, sneezed, or made
+any other noise! his nervous master would be out of temper for a day
+afterwards. On wet days Piero was merrier, for he would watch the drops
+splashing into the pools, and laugh as if they were fairies. Sometimes
+he would take Andrea for a walk, and all at once stop and gaze at a heap
+of rubbish, or mark of damp on a lichened wall, picturing all kinds of
+monsters and weird scenes in its discolourations.
+
+No doubt he was literally carrying out Leonardo da Vinci's advice,
+headed, in his treatise, "A new Art of Invention." "Look at some old
+wall covered with dirt, or the odd appearance of some old streaked
+stones; you may discover several things like landscapes, battles,
+clouds, humorous faces, &c., to furnish the mind with new designs."
+[Footnote: Leonardo da Vinci, _Treatise on Painting_.] Cosimo's mind
+being fantastic, the pictures he saw were incomparably grotesque. He
+delighted in drawing sea monsters, dragons, wonderful adventures, and
+heathen scenes; in fact the boy could have learned neither Christian
+art nor manners from him. He learned how to use his brush, however, and,
+leaving Piero to his minotaurs and dragons, went off at every spare hour
+to study at more congenial shrines. He copied Masaccio at the Brancacci
+Chapel, and drew so earnestly from the cartoons in the Hall of the Pope
+that his achievements reached the ears of Piero himself, who was not
+sorry that his pupil surpassed the rest, and gave him more time for
+study away from the bottega. Rosini tells us that "Fra Bartolommeo
+taught him the first steps." [Footnote: _Storia della Pittura_, chap,
+xxvii. p. 2.] The influence of the Frate may have reached him in two
+ways. It is not unlikely that Piero di Cosimo kept up an interest in his
+old fellow-pupil; and then again, as Andrea lived in Val Fonda, it is
+probable he often visited Albertinelli's studio in that street, and the
+friendship with Francia Bigio began before the cartoons of Michelangelo
+ripened there.
+
+The evidence of style goes to show that the works of Albertinelli and
+Fra Bartolommeo influenced him more than those of Piero. Yet though
+his sphere was devotional, it was "impelled more by a material sense of
+beauty than by the deep religious feeling which inspired the Frate."
+
+As time went on the youth in strange old Piero's studio became more
+famous than his master, and felt that he could do greater things away
+from the stiff method which cramped him, and the whimsicalities which
+annoyed him. His friend, Francia Bigio, Mariotto's pupil, having
+just then lost his master, who was giving more attention to his
+father-in-law's business of innkeeper than his own, was willing to enter
+into partnership, and the two youths began life together in 1509 or
+1510, in a room near the Piazza del Grano, in the first house in Via del
+Moro, which still remains in its old state.
+
+The first bit of patronage recorded is the commission for the frescoes
+in the Scalzo; that they had work before is proved by the words in
+the contract of the Barefoot Friars, "dettero ad Andrea pittore
+_celeberrimo_ il dipingere nel Chiosto." The "celebrated" presupposes
+works already done.
+
+The Scalzo was a name given to the "Compagnia dei Disciplinati di S.
+Giovanni Battista," because they went barefoot when they carried the
+cross in their processions. They lived in a convent in Via Larga (now
+Cavour), opposite San Marco. A new cloister had been erected there--an
+elegant little cortile, thirty-eight feet by thirty-two, adorned with
+lovely Corinthian pillars--and the Brethren were anxious to fill the
+lunettes of the arches with frescoes at the least possible expense,
+wisely judging that a young artist on his way to fame would be the best
+to employ.
+
+The frescoes, of which there would be twelve large, and four small ones
+in the upright spaces by the doors, were to be done in "terretta," or
+brown earth, and to be paid fifty-six lire (eight scudi) for the large,
+and twenty-one lire (three scudi) each for the lesser frescoes. The
+small ones were four figures of the Virtues, _Faith_, _Hope_, _Justice_,
+and _Charity_. _Hope_ is exquisitely expressed, and _Charity_ a charming
+group, the children most tenderly drawn. The subjects, though not all
+finished till many years later, stand now in the following order; the
+second row of figures, with the dates, show the order in which they were
+painted:--
+
+ 1. Gabriel appearing to Zacharias          Andrea del Sarto   9  1523.
+ 2. Visitation                              Andrea del Sarto  10  1523.
+ 3. Birth of S. John                        Andrea del Sarto   4  1514.
+ 4. Zacharias blessing John before going    Francia Bigio.
+      to the desert
+ 5. S. John meets the Virgin and Infant     Francia Bigio.
+      Christ
+ 6. Baptism of Christ                       Andrea del Sarto   1  1509.
+ 7. Preaching of S. John                    Andrea del Sarto   2  1514.
+ 8. Baptism of the Gentiles                 Andrea del Sarto   3  1514.
+ 9. S. John bound in the presence of Herod  Andrea del Sarto   5  1522.
+10. Dance of Herodias Andrea del Sarto 6 1522. 11. Beheading of S.
+ John Andrea del Sarto 7 1522. 12. Herodias receives the head of S. John
+ Andrea del Sarto 8 1522.
+
+Of these, No. 6 was the first executed, and it is probable that Francia
+Bigio assisted him, for it has not the finished drawing nor careful
+handling of any of Andrea's other frescoes. Possibly this is the cause
+of the partners never working together afterwards, each taking his own
+subjects and signing his own name. The composition, in the _Baptism of
+Christ_, is not original, being very similar to that of Verocchio's,
+especially in the two angels kneeling on the left bank; the landscape
+and figures, however, are far in advance of that master.
+
+It will be well to speak of the whole set of frescoes in this place, for
+although they belong to different times and styles, they are a complete
+work, and might be taken almost as an epitome of Andrea's career;
+from the one above mentioned in which Piero de Cosimo's influence is
+apparent, to the Nos. 7 and 8, which very nearly approach Michelangelo's
+power and freedom.
+
+In No. 1 the expression of muteness about the mouth of Zacharias, as he
+stands by the altar, is wonderfully given; you feel sure he could not
+speak if he would. The other figures are superfluous to the motive,
+though adding grandeur to the work as a whole.
+
+In composition Andrea differs widely from Fra Bartolommeo. The latter
+delighted in building up a single form, every figure in the whole
+picture adding its hue and weight to perfect this pyramid or circle.
+Andrea spreads his figures more widely; he likes a double composition,
+dividing his pictures into two separate groups, connected by one central
+figure, or divided entirely. This is seen in Nos. 3, 10 and 12, which
+are all double groupings, the last completely divided in the centre by a
+table and an archway behind it. Nos. 7 and 9 are pyramidal compositions.
+The _Preaching of S. John_ is one of the best works, and shows his most
+forcible style. S. John on a rock stands like a pillar in the centre,
+the hearers are dressed in the "lucco" (a Florentine cloak of the 15th
+century), the grouping following the lines of the landscape. At the
+back Jesus kneels on a rising ground. Vasari says the figures are from
+Albrecht Duerer, whose works had made a great impression on the southern
+world of art; but it is more probable that they only show his influence,
+for the dress and style are Florentine.
+
+No. 8, the _Baptism of the Gentiles_, is another of his best style,
+and is, in the drawing of the nude figures, almost Michelangelesque
+in power. This is one of his favourite "echo" subjects, a group in the
+background of _John answering the Pharisees _forming an echo to the
+principal subject. The muscular life of the spirited crowd of nude
+figures is beautifully contrasted by the graceful draped forms in the
+background. One of the baptized is the same child whom he had modelled
+in the _Madonna_ of S. Francisco.
+
+Nos. 4 and 5 are by Francia Bigio, and were done during Andrea's absence
+in France, showing that he had so far learned from his friend as almost
+to rival him in power. The subjects, although not scriptural, are
+conjecturally true.
+
+In the _Zacharias blessing John before he goes to the Desert_, the
+sitting figure of S. Elizabeth and the kneeling one of the child are
+very lovely; the action of Zacharias is not so well defined, the
+great force in the uplifted arm betokens anger more than blessing. The
+grouping follows the lines of a flight of steps in the background, and
+is triangular.
+
+The same form of composition is apparent in the next group (No. 5), only
+the lines form an angle receding from the one just mentioned. The Virgin
+is charmingly posed and draped, the children less pleasing.
+
+This elegant little cloister is a true shrine of art, although the
+frescoes are all in monochrome. So much were they admired at the time,
+that an order was issued prohibiting artists to copy them without the
+permission of Duke Cosimo. Cardinal Carlo de' Medici had them covered
+with curtains, [Footnote: Richa, _Delle Chiese_] but, in spite of care,
+they are very much injured, the under parts almost lost. The precaution
+of covering the cloister with a glass roof has only been taken in modern
+times, and too late.
+
+Andrea's next patrons were the Eremite monks of S. Agostino, at San
+Gallo, who ordered of him two pictures for their church. In 1511 he
+painted _Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen_, and an _Annunciation_ in
+1512. The former is said to have had much softness and delicacy, the
+latter is to be seen in the Hall of Mars at the Pitti, and is a very
+pleasing picture. The Virgin kneels at her prayer desk, S. Joseph behind
+her--a rather unusual rendering of the subject--her attitude is graceful
+and decorous, the angel calm and gentle, floats in mid air, two other
+angels stand on the left. The colouring is varied in the extreme, and
+the lights well defined.
+
+These two pictures, and the _Disputa_, painted later, were removed to
+the church of S. Jacopo tra Fossi, when the convent was demolished in
+1529. They were still there in 1677, when Bocchi wrote his _Bellezze di
+Firenze_, but the _Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen_ is said to be now
+in the church of the Covoni in the Casentino.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE SERVITE CLOISTER. A.D. 1511-1512.
+
+
+The next great works were the frescoes in the Court of S. Annunziata, if
+indeed they were not carried on simultaneously with those in the Scalzo.
+This famous series of Andrea's works was obtained by cunning, and
+painted in emulation. While the two partners, who had differed from the
+beginning, and had since become rivals, were engaged in the Scalzo, a
+certain astute Fra Mariano, the keeper of the wax candle stores at the
+Servite Convent--to which the church of the S. Annunziata belonged--had
+watched well those two young painters. Fra Mariano understood human
+nature, as priests often do; he had seen the envious rivalship growing
+between them, as the friends, who should have worked together, took
+separate compartments, and cast jealous criticising glances on each
+other's designs and method of work. Having ambition of his own, he knew
+how to work on that of others to further his own aspirations, which
+were, to be considered a patron of art and a benefactor to his convent.
+
+Reading Andrea's heart, he played on all his strongest feelings, placed
+before him the glory he would win by covering the lunettes of the arches
+in the court of the fine church with frescoes which would carry his
+name down to posterity; he said that any other artist would pay much
+to obtain leave to paint upon historical walls like those, and how they
+would all envy the man who should obtain the coveted honour! Then, with
+a half-whispered hint that for one, Francia Bigio was dying to get the
+commission for nothing, the wily Frate went his way victorious. Andrea,
+scorning to make any pecuniary bargain, only stipulated that no one else
+should paint in that courtyard, and forthwith began the _Stories from
+the Life of S. Filippo Benizzi_, having only old Alesso Baldovinetti's
+_Nativity_, and Cosimo Roselli's _Miracle of S. Filippo_, as foils to
+his own. These two works were on the walls on each side of the church
+door; there were therefore three entire sides of the cloister to cover,
+excepting only the entrance into the courtyard from the Piazza, and
+no doubt he felt like Ghirlandajo, when "he wished he had the entire
+circuit of the city walls to paint."
+
+On the 16th of June, 1511, he began to paint with such vigour that in a
+few months the first three were uncovered.
+
+1. _S. Philip at Viterbo with the Court, dressing a naked leper in his
+own cloak_.
+
+2. _S. Philip going from Bologna to Modena_. He rebukes some gamblers,
+telling them the vengeance of God is near. A sudden thunderstorm and
+lightning destroy them, thus fulfilling the prediction. There is a
+great deal of fine action in this composition; the horror and disbelief
+struggling in the faces of the men, and the stormy landscape are all
+well rendered. A horse leaps away with strong, terrified action, there
+is a masterly grasp of his vivid subject, and a rugged strength in the
+execution which gives great life to it.
+
+3. _S. Philip exorcises a Girl possessed of a Demon_. Here the
+composition is very tender, the mother and father support the sick girl,
+and form a very pleasing group; the figures of the spectators are full
+of life without exaggeration.
+
+These works have suffered much from exposure, but the colouring is still
+good. The praise that Andrea obtained for them was so great that he
+followed them up by the two in the next series.
+
+4. _A Child brought to life by touching the bier of S. Philip_. This is
+a kind of double composition, the child being represented in a twofold
+condition in the foreground, first as dead, and then revived at the
+touch of the bier. The grouping around the dead saint is very suggestive
+of Ghirlandajo, and shews a deep study of his frescoes in the Sassetti
+Chapel. The colouring is peculiarly his own; there is the mingling of
+a great variety of bright tints of equal intensity, which by some
+necromancy are made to relieve each other, instead of being relieved by
+the art of chiaroscuro as in the handling of other masters.
+
+5. _Children healed by the garments of S. Philip_, which are held by a
+priest, standing before an altar, the women and their children kneeling
+in front of him. The grouping is symmetrical, the figures lifelike, but
+not refined, round-cheeked buxom women, and rough, human men's faces,
+bespeak Andrea as the painter of reality rather than ideality; there is
+vivid life in every attitude, but the life is not high caste. A fine old
+man, leaning on his staff, is a portrait of Andrea della Robbia, whose
+son Luca stands near.
+
+For all these Fra Mariano paid only ten scudi each, and Andrea, feeling
+the remuneration not equal to the merit of the work, would have left off
+here, but the Frate held him to his bond. Two more lunettes yet remained
+to finish, but as these were of a later date, we will reserve them for
+a future chapter. He also painted in the _orto_, or garden, of the
+convent, the now perished fresco of the _Parable of the Vineyard_.
+
+Meanwhile, the rival friends had changed lodgings; they left the Piazza
+del Grano, and took rooms in the Sapienza, a street between the Piazza
+San Marco and the S. Annunziata. Andrea chose this because it was near
+his work, and also because his great friends, Sansovino and Rustici,
+already lived there. Commissions began to pour in on him, which he
+fulfilled, while still at work at the Servi. Judging from the style of
+his early manner, we may date at this time a _Virgin and Child, with
+S. John and S. Joseph_, now in the Pitti. It is painted "alla prima,"
+_i.e._ a quick method of giving the effect in the first painting,--and
+is probably the one spoken of by Vasari as painted for Andrea Santini;
+it formerly belonged to Francesco Troschi. [Footnote: _Life of Andrea
+del Sarto_, vol iii, p. 193.]
+
+A _S. Agnes_, in the palace of the Prince Palatine, at Duesseldorf, is
+in this early style. He also painted some frescoes at San Salvi, _SS.
+Giovanni Gualberto and Benedict resting on clouds_; they ornamented the
+recess where the _Last Supper_ was placed at a later period.
+
+In a narrow alley, behind the church of Or San Michele, is a tabernacle
+on the wall beneath an ancient balcony. Here the architect, Baccio
+d'Agnolo, commissioned Andrea del Sarto to paint an _Annunciation_. It
+is so much injured as to be almost indistinguishable now, but was much
+admired at the time, though some say it was too laboured, and so wanting
+in ease and grace. [Footnote: Biadi, 26; Vasari, vol. iii, p 189.] It
+is more likely that it was one of his early works, and should be classed
+before the frescoes of the Scalzo, for it is said that he was living at
+the time with his father, whose shop was over the archway, and that
+he had adorned the inner walls of the house with two frescoed angels.
+[Footnote: _Firenze antica e moderna_ Ed. Flor. 1794, vol. vi, p. 216.]
+These have perished completely.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+SOCIAL LIFE AND MARRIAGE. A.D. 1511-1516.
+
+
+This chapter will speak of the _man_, and not of the _artist_. As it is
+now understood that history is not a dry record of battles and laws, but
+the story of the inner life of a people, so the biography of a painter
+ought not to consist wholly in a list and description of his works, but
+a picture of his life and inner mind, that we may know the character
+which prompted the works.
+
+First, as to personal appearance. There are two portraits of Andrea
+del Sarto in his youth; one in the Duke of Northumberland's collection
+represents him as a young man with long hair, and a black cap, writing
+at a table. It is painted in a soft, harmonious style, but not masterly
+as regards chiaroscuro. It might be by Francia Bigio, as it has
+something of the manner of his master, Albertinelli.
+
+Another now in the Uffizi is a most life-like portrait of sombre
+colouring, but not highly finished. Here we have the same black cap and
+long hair; the dress is a painter's blouse of a blue-grey, which well
+brings out the flesh tints. The face is intelligent, but not refined;
+the clear dark eyes bespeak the artist spirit, but the full mobile mouth
+tells the material nature of the man. In looking at this one can solve
+the riddle of the dissonance between his art and his life. As a young
+man Andrea was full of spirit; he loved lively society, and knew almost
+all the young artists who lived very much as students now. They met each
+other in the art schools, and dined and feasted together in the wine
+shops. Sometimes they formed private clubs, meeting in certain rooms for
+purposes of youthful merriment.
+
+Of this kind was the "Society of the Cauldron" ("Societa del Paiuolo"),
+held at the apartment of the eccentric sculptor, Rustici, which was in
+the same street as that of Andrea himself.
+
+Sansovino, who also lived near, was not a member of this rollicking
+club; he was one of Andrea's more serious friends, and served as
+companion when his most exalted moods were upon him. Perhaps Rustici's
+rooms did not please Sansovino, for strange inmates were there--a
+hedgehog, an eagle, a talking raven, snakes and reptiles, in a kind
+of aquarium; besides all these gruesome familiar spirits, Rustici was
+addicted to necromancy. The Society of the Cauldron seems only a natural
+outgrowth from such a character. It consisted of twelve members, all
+artists, goldsmiths, or musicians, each of whom was allowed to bring
+four friends to the supper, and bound to provide a dish. Any two members
+bringing similar dishes were fined, but the droll part of it was that
+the suppers were eaten in a huge cauldron large enough to put table and
+chairs into; the handle served as an arched chandelier, the table was
+on a lift, and when one course was finished it disappeared from their
+midst, and descended to be replenished. As for the viands, the sculptors
+displayed their talents in moulding classical subjects in pastry, and
+turning boiled fowls into figures of Ulysses and Laertes. The architects
+built up temples and palaces of jellies, cakes, and sausages; the
+goldsmith, Robetta, produced an anvil and accoutrements made of a
+calf's head, the painters treated roast pig to represent a scullery-maid
+spinning.
+
+Andrea del Sarto built up the model of the Baptistery with all kinds of
+eatables, with a reading desk of veal, and book with letters inlaid with
+truffles, at which the choristers were roast thrushes with open beaks,
+while the canons were pigeons in red mantles of beetroot--an idea more
+droll than reverential.
+
+After this, in 1512, another club, called that of the "Trowel," was
+instituted, of which Andrea was not a member, but was chosen as an
+associate. The first supper was arranged by Giuliano Bugiardini, and was
+held on the _aja_ or threshing floor of S. Maria Nuova, where the bronze
+gates of the Baptistery had been cast.
+
+In this no two members were allowed to wear the same style of dress
+under penalty of a fine. The members were in two ranks, the "lesser" and
+the "greater," a parody on the guilds of the city. They were shown the
+plan of a building, and the "greater" members, furnished with trowels,
+were obliged to build it in edibles, the "lesser" acting as hodmen, and
+bringing materials. Pails of ricotta or goat's milk cheese served for
+mortar, grated cheese for sand, sugar plums for gravel, cakes and pastry
+for bricks, the basement was of meats, the pillars fowls or sausages.
+
+Some suppers were classical scenes, others allegorical representations,
+always in the same edible form. We can imagine the wit which sparkled
+round these strange tables, the jokes of the artists, the songs of the
+musicians. Andrea del Sarto is said to have recited an heroi-comic poem
+in six cantos called the "Battle of the frogs and mice." Biadi gives it
+entire; it seems a kind of satire on Rustici's tastes, with perhaps
+a hit at the government, and shows no lack of wit of rather unrefined
+style; but the authorship is not proved. Some say Ottaviano de Medici
+assisted Andrea in it.
+
+It would have been well for Andrea if this innocent jollity had sufficed
+for him, but unfortunately he admired a woman whose beauty was greater
+than her merits. Probably he began by mere artistic appreciation of her
+personal charms, for she sat to him for the _Madonna of the Visitation_,
+which was painted in 1514, two years before their marriage. This
+Lucrezia della Fede was the wife of a hatter who lived in Via San Gallo.
+Her husband dying after a short illness, Andrea del Sarto married her,
+and whatever were her faults, she retained his life-long love. Biadi and
+Reumont give the date 26th of December, 1512, as that of the death of
+her husband, but Signor Milanesi, from more authentic sources, proves it
+to have been in 1516.
+
+A great deal has been said and written of the evil influence this woman
+had on him, and his very house bears an inscription recording his fame
+together with "affanni domestici," but it would seem that posterity
+has taken for truth more than the facts of the time imply. That she was
+proud, haughty, exacting, and not of a high moral nature, that she was
+selfish, and begrudged his helping his own family, her every action
+proves. That her manners were not conciliating to the pupils is
+possible, perhaps their manners savoured too much of familiarity for a
+woman who believed in her own charms; but that she was faithless, which
+her biographers assert on the strength of Vasari's phrase, "that Andrea
+was tormented by jealousy," there is literally nothing to show.
+
+In the first place Vasari--who was one of the scholars she offended and
+put down--gives vent to his private pique in his first edition, and in
+the second, which only contains a slight mention of her, omits almost
+all he had previously said. Now, if the first assertions were true why
+should he retract them? Secondly, the sixteenth century was an age of
+license in writing and speaking, and had any immoralities been laid to
+her charge, not a biographer would have scrupled to particularize them;
+but no! her name is never mentioned, except with her husband's, even by
+her greatest enemies, who say she was as haughty as she was beautiful.
+Thirdly, a faithless woman could never have kept her husband's devoted
+love, and had she been so, would that affectionate though exaggerated
+letter of hers, recalling him from France, have been written? That a
+man who thinks his wife the most lovely creature living may be tormented
+with jealousy without wrong doing on her part is more than possible.
+
+Let us then place Lucrezia's character where it ought to stand in Andrea
+del Sarto's life--as a powerful influence, lowering his moral nature,
+weaning him from his duties as a son and brother, by fixing all his care
+and affection on herself; she, however, not allowing her own family to
+be losers by her marriage, although causing him to slight his own. Even
+this much-spoken-of neglect of his own family seems disproved by his
+will, which, after a very little more than her own dot left to his wife,
+makes his brother and niece heirs of all his estate.
+
+Except that she cared more for her own pleasure than his true
+advancement, she was not any great hindrance to his artistic career; he
+painted an incredible number of pictures, and she was willing to sit
+for him over and over again. Indeed if she were his model for all the
+Madonnas in which her features are recognisable, she must have had
+either inexhaustible patience or great love for the artist.
+
+In fact she was thoroughly selfish; as long as she reaped the benefit
+of his work she furthered his art; where she was left out of his
+consideration he must be brought back to her side at any sacrifice to
+him. This is not the stuff of which an artist's wife ought to be made;
+the influence of a strong-willed selfish nature on his weak and material
+one was not good, and his _morale_ became lowered.
+
+He felt this deterioration less than his friends felt it for him; even
+Vasari says that "though he lived in torment, he yet accounted it a high
+pleasure." It was one of those unions in which the man gives everything,
+and the woman receives and allows every sacrifice. Her family were kept
+at his expense, her daughter loved as his own, and if she were haughty
+or exacting, he suffered with a Socratic patience, thinking life with
+her a privilege.
+
+It is to be supposed that a member of the societies of the Cauldron
+and the Trowel would appreciate good living. He was so devoted to
+the pleasures of the table that he went to market himself early every
+morning and came home laden with delicacies. [Footnote: Biadi, _Notixie
+inedite_, &c., chap. xix. p. 62.] A curious confirmation of this is to
+be found in his house, the dining-room of which is beautifully frescoed,
+the arched roof in Raphaelesque scrolls and grotesques; while the
+lunettes of one wall have two large pictures, one of a woman roasting
+birds over a fire, the other of a servant preparing the table for
+dinner. This love of good living, however, in the end shortened his
+life, according to Biadi.
+
+After his marketing was over he turned his attention to art, going to
+his fresco painting followed by his scholars, or superintending their
+work in the "bottega." He was always a kind and thorough master, his
+manner just and fatherly.
+
+Sometimes he and Sansovino or other friends lounged away an hour in the
+neighbouring shop of Nanni Unghero, where their mutual friend, Niccolo
+Tribolo, did all the hard work, fetching and carrying blocks and saws
+grumblingly. Tribolo often begged Sansovino to take him as his pupil,
+which he did afterwards, and he became a famous sculptor. One of
+Andrea's acquaintances was Baccio Bandinelli, who, as he thought he
+could equal Michelangelo in sculpture, imagined that only a knowledge
+of Andrea del Sarto's method of colouring was necessary to enable him
+to surpass him in painting. To gain this knowledge he proposed to sit to
+Andrea for his portrait. His friend, discovering his motive, succeeded
+in frustrating it by mixing a quantity of colours in seeming confusion
+on his palette, and yet getting from this chaos exactly the tints he
+required. So Baccio never rivalled his friend in colouring after all,
+not being able to understand his method.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+WORKS IN FLORENCE. A.D. 1511-1515.
+
+
+From 1511 to 1514 Andrea was employed on the two last frescoes in the
+courtyard of the SS. Annunziata the _Epiphany_ and the _Nativity of the
+Virgin_. The sum fixed for these was ninety-eight lire, but the Servite
+brothers augmented it by forty-two lire more, seeing the work was
+"veramente maravigliosa"; thus these two were paid at the same rate as
+the other five of S. Filippo--seventy lire or ten scudi each.
+
+In the _Nativity_, one of the finest of his frescoes, we see his
+favourite double grouping, the interest in the mother being kept to one
+side, that of the child and its attendants to the other-a balance of
+form united by Joachim, a stern, finely moulded figure in the centre.
+The attitudes are natural, the draperies free and graceful. Old Vasari
+justly remarks "pajono di carne le figure." The woman standing in the
+centre of the room is Lucrezia della Fede; this is the first known
+likeness of her. There is a richness of colour without impasto, a
+modulation of shade giving full relief without startling contrast, a
+clear air below and celestial haze in the angel-peopled clouds above.
+
+This might well be classed as on the highest level ever reached in
+fresco. Nearly fifty years after it was painted, while Jacopo d'Empoli
+was copying this fresco, an old woman came through the courtyard to
+mass, and, stopping to watch the young artist at his work, began to talk
+of the days of her youth and beauty when she sat for the likeness of
+that natural figure in the midst, no doubt sighing as she looked at
+the freshness of the fresco, and thought of her many wrinkles and aged
+limbs, she being nearly fourscore at the time.
+
+The _Epiphany_ is also a remarkable work, more lively than the last;
+it is also less carefully painted, the graceful feminine element
+is wanting; there is plenty of activity, a crowded composition,
+and richness of colour. Three figures are especially interesting as
+likenesses; that of the musician Francesco Ajolle--a great composer of
+madrigals, who went to France in 1530, and spent the remainder of his
+life there; Sansovino, on the right of Ajolle; and near him Andrea
+himself--the same face as the portrait in the Uffizi already spoken of.
+
+The _Madonna del Sacco_, over the door of the entrance to the church
+from the cloister, would seem to have been painted in the same year,
+1514, judging from Biadi's extract from the MS. account books of the
+Servite Fathers existing in the archives, where is an entry "Giugno,
+1514, ad Andrea del Sarto, per resto della Madonna del Sacco, lire 56."
+This term _resto_ (remainder) would imply a previous payment. The money
+was a thank-offering from a woman for having been absolved from a vow by
+one of the Servite priests. Like all his other frescoes of this church,
+Andrea only gained ten scudi for this masterpiece. The date of MDXXV.
+and the words "Quem genuit adoravit" on the pilasters of this work have
+led most writers to suppose it painted in that year; but it is probable
+they were added by a later hand. Biadi [Footnote: Biadi, _Notizie_, &c.,
+p. 42 note.] says the letters are of the style of nearly two centuries
+later, that Andrea would have signed it, like all his other and works,
+with his monogram of the crossed A's (i.e. Andrea d' Agnolo). For
+charming soft harmonies of colour, simplicity, and grace of design, this
+surpasses all his other frescoes. The Madonna has an imposing grandeur
+of form, there is a boyish strength and moulding in the limbs of the
+child which is very expressive, the dignity of Joseph and majesty of the
+Virgin are not to be surpassed; and yet the whole is given in a space so
+cramped that all the figures have to be reclining or sitting.
+
+[Illustration of Monogram]
+
+After this Andrea returned to the Scalzo, the Barefoot Brothers offering
+better pay than the Servites. Here he did the allegory of _Justice_
+and the _Sermon of S. John_ in monochrome. In these he took a fancy to
+retrograde his style, for they have the rugged force and angular form
+that recalls the more stern old Italian masters, or that Titan of
+northern art, Albrecht Duerer.
+
+Of his works in oil at this era we may class--
+
+1. The _Story of Joseph_, painted for Zanobi Girolami Bracci, which
+Borghini judges a beautiful picture. The figures were small, but the
+painting highly finished. It came afterwards into the possession of the
+Medici family.
+
+2. A _Madonna_, with decorations and models surrounding it like a frame,
+was painted for Sansovino's patron, Giovanni Gaddi, afterwards clerk
+of the chamber to Ferdinand I. It was existing in the collection of the
+Gaddi Pozzi family in Borghini's time.
+
+3. _Annunciation_, for Giovanni di Paolo Merciajo, now in the Hall
+of Saturn in the Pitti Palace. It is a pretty composition, the Virgin
+sitting, yet half kneeling, the angel on his knees before her. There is
+a yellowish light in the sky between two looped dark green curtains; the
+angel's yellow robe takes the light beautifully.
+
+4. _Madonna and Child_, in the "Hall of the Education of Jupiter" in the
+Pitti Palace, one of his most pleasing groups. This is supposed by the
+commentators of Vasari to be the altarpiece painted for Giovanni di
+Paolo Merciajo, but Biadi traces it through the possession of Antonio,
+son of Zanobi Bracci, to its present possessors. The mistake arises
+from Vasari often confusing the names Annunciations and Assumptions with
+Madonnas.
+
+5. A _Holy Family_, for Andrea Santini, which awakened great admiration
+in Florence. It was in the possession of Signer Alessandro Curti Lepri,
+by whose permission Morghen's print was taken.
+
+6. The _Head of our Saviour_, over the altar of the SS. Annunziata,
+ordered by the sacristan of the order. A magnificent head, full of
+grandeur and expression, and very clear in the flesh tints. Empoli made
+several copies of it.
+
+7. The _Madonna di San Francesco_, Andrea's masterpiece among easel
+pictures. It was a commission from a monk of the order of "Minorites of
+Santa Croce," who was intendant of the nuns of S. Francesco, and
+advised them to employ Andrea. In grandiose simplicity this surpasses
+Albertinelli's _Visitation_, in soft gradations and rich mellowness
+of colour it equals Fra Bartolommeo at his best, for tenderness in the
+attitude of the child it is quite Raphaelesque. The Madonna is standing
+on a pedestal adorned with sculptured harpies. She holds the Divine
+Child in one arm; its little hands are twined tenderly round her neck,
+and it seems to be climbing closer to her. The two children at her feet
+give a suggestive triangular grouping, while the dignified figures of S.
+Francis and S. John the Evangelist form supports on each side, and
+rear up a pyramid of beauty. Rosini's term "soave" just expresses this
+picture, so fused and soft, rich yet transparent in the colouring. The
+olive-brown robe of one saint is balanced by the rich red of the other.
+In the Virgin, a deep blue and mellow orange are combined by a crimson
+bodice. The price paid to the painter for this was low because he asked
+little; but a century or two later, Ferdinando de' Medici, son of Cosmo
+III., spent 20,000 scudi to restore the church, and had a copy of the
+picture made in return for a gift of the original, which is now the gem
+of the Tribune in the Uffizi.
+
+8. The _Disputa, di S. Agostino_ is another masterpiece, showing as much
+power as the last-named work displays of softness. It was painted at the
+order of the Eremite monks of San Gallo for their church of San Jacopo
+tra Fossi, where it was injured by a flood in 1557, and removed later
+to the Hall of Saturn in the Pitti Palace. The composition is level, the
+four disputing saints standing in a row, the two listeners, S. Sebastian
+and Mary Magdalen, kneeling in front. S Agostino, with fierce vehemence,
+expounds the mystery of the Trinity; S. Stephen turns to S. Francesco
+interrogatively, S. Domenico (whom Vasari, by the way, calls S. Peter
+Martyr) has a face full of silent eloquence--he seems only waiting his
+turn to speak. In S. Sebastian we have a good study from the nude, and
+in Mary Magdalen's kneeling figure--a charming portrait of Lucrezia--is
+concentrated the principal focus of colour.
+
+9. _Four Saints_, SS. Gio. Battista, Gio. Gualberto, S. Michele, and
+Bernardo Cardinale, a beautifully-painted picture, once in the Hermitage
+of Vallombrosa. There were originally two little angels in the midst
+dividing the saints, as in our illustration. When the picture was
+transferred to the Gallery of the Belle Arti, where it now is, the
+angels were taken out and the divided saints brought into a more compact
+group. The angels are in a frame between two frescoed Madonnas of Fra
+Bartolommeo.
+
+By this time the fame of Andrea del Sarto, both as a fresco and oil
+painter, had risen to the highest point. Michelangelo only echoed the
+opinion of others when he said to Raphael, "There is a little fellow in
+Florence who will bring the sweat to your brow if ever he is engaged in
+great works." His style of composition was important, his figures varied
+and life-like, his draperies dignified. "The main excellence, however,
+in which Andrea stands unique among his contemporaries rests in the
+incomparable blending of colour, in the soft flesh tints, in the
+exquisite chiaroscuro, in the transparent clearness even of his
+deepest shadows, and in his entirely new manner of perfect modelling."
+[Footnote: _Luebke History of Art_, vol. ii. p. 241.] His method, as
+shown in an unfinished picture of the _Adoration of the Magi_ in the
+Guadagni Palace, was to paint on a light ground; the sketch was a
+black outline, the features and details not defined, but often roughly
+indicated. He finished first the sky and background. The flesh tints,
+draperies, &c., were all true in tone from the first laying in.
+[Footnote: Eastlake's _Materials for History of Oil Fainting_.] He did
+not place shades one over the other, and fuse them together glaze by
+glaze as Leonardo did, but used an opaque dead colouring which allowed
+of correction; the system was rapid, but deficient in depth and
+mellowness; "the lights are fused and bright," but "the shadows, owing
+to their viscous consistency, imperfectly fill the outlines." [Footnote:
+Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. in. chap. xvii. p. 670.] In a _Holy Family_
+in the Louvre, S. Elizabeth's hand is painted across S. John, and shows
+the shadow underneath it, being grey at that part. Though more solid,
+he could not paint light over dark without injuring his brilliance of
+colour.
+
+Albertinelli, on the contrary, when he painted and repainted his
+_Annunciation_, washed out the under layer with essential oil before
+making his "pentimenti" or corrections, and in this way the thinness was
+kept.
+
+In Andrea's early style this thinness is apparent, especially in the
+Joseph series, painted for Pier Francesco Borgherini.
+
+Biadi classes Andrea's works in three styles. The first showing the
+influence of Piero di Cosimo, the second--to which the best works in the
+Servi cloisters belong--is a larger and more natural style, after the
+study of Michelangelo and Leonardo.
+
+The third is the natural development in his own practice of a perfect
+knowledge of art, and a just appreciation of nature. The _Birth of
+the Baptist_ and the _Cenacolo_, of San Salvi, belong to his last and
+greatest manner. In 1515 the Florentine artists were employed on more
+perishable works than frescoes. Leo X., the Medici Pope who had been
+elected in 1513, made his triumphal entry into Florence on the 3rd of
+September, 1515, on his way to meet Francis I. of France at Bologna.
+All the guilds and ranks of Florence vied with each other to make his
+reception as artistic as possible. He and his suite were obliged to stay
+three days in the Villa Gianfigliazzi at Marignolle while the triumphal
+preparations were being completed. The churches had temporary _facades_
+of splendid architecture in fresco; arches were erected at the Porta
+Romana and Piazza San Felice, covered with historical paintings;
+Giuliano del Tasso adorned the Ponte Santa Trinita with statues;
+Antonio San Gallo made a temple on the Piazza della Signoria, and
+Baccio Bandinelli prepared a colossus in the Loggia dei Lanzi. Various
+decorations adorned other streets, and Andrea del Sarto surpassed them
+all with a _facade_ to the Duomo, painted in monochrome on wood. His
+friend Sansovino designed the architecture, and he painted the sculpture
+and adornments with such effect that the Pope declared no work in marble
+could have been finer.
+
+Andrea lent his talent to another kind of decorative art. The guild
+of merchants were desirous of inaugurating a festa for the day of S.
+Giovanni, and had ten chariots made from the model of the ancient Roman
+ones, to institute chariot races in the piazza. Andrea painted several
+of these with historical subjects, but they have long been lost. The
+chariot races were revived under the Grand Dukes, but not with any
+success.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+GOING TO FRANCE. A.D. 1518-1519.
+
+
+Meanwhile fate was working Andrea del Sarto on to what might have been
+the culminating point of his fame, had not his weakness rendered it
+a blot on his honour; i.e. his journey to France. His fame was rising
+high; a picture of the _Dead Christ surrounded by Angels_, weeping over
+the body they support, having been sent to France, [Footnote: It was
+engraved by the Venetian, Agostino, before it went to France; the
+engraving is signed 1516. It did not please Andrea, who never allowed
+any others to be engraved.] the king was so pleased with it that he
+wished another work by the same artist. Andrea painted a very beautiful
+_Madonna_, for which, however, he only obtained a quarter of the price
+which the king paid to the merchants. The king was so delighted with it
+that he sent the artist an invitation to come to Paris in his employ,
+promising to pay all his expenses. In the Pitti Palace there is a
+portrait of Andrea and his wife, in which he has commemorated the
+reception of this letter. He is looking very interested over it, while
+his wife has the blankest expression possible.
+
+In the summer of 1518 he started with his pupil, Andrea Sguazzella,
+called Nanoccio. Such a journey was in those days considered as little
+less than a parting for life. It is plain that Lucrezia's family
+looked on her as almost a widow, for they made him sign a deed of
+acknowledgement for the 150 florins of her _dote_. Some authors have
+taken this document as a proof of their marriage in that year, but it
+was merely a precaution against loss by her family; the Italian law
+being that the husband is obliged to render the portion obtained with
+his wife to her family if she dies without issue, and in case of his own
+death, the widow is entitled to it.
+
+He was well received in Paris, and employed immediately on a likeness
+of the infant Dauphin Henri II., then only a few months old. For this he
+obtained 300 scudi: and a monthly salary was allowed him. What a mine of
+gold the French court must have seemed to him after working for years at
+large frescoes for ten scudi each!
+
+He did no less than fifty works of art while there, most of which have
+been engraved by the best French artists.[Footnote: See _Catalogue of
+Royal Pictures in France_, by M. Lepiscie.] The _Carita_ is signed
+1518, and is in Andrea's best style--perhaps with a leaning towards
+Michelangelo. The _S. Jerome in Penitence_, which he painted for the
+king's mother, and obtained a large price for, cannot be traced. His
+life in Paris was a new revelation, and not without its effect on his
+character, always alive to substantial pleasure.
+
+The king and his courtiers frequented his atelier, and delighted to
+watch him paint, vieing with each other in the richness of their gifts,
+among which were splendid brocade dresses and beautiful ornaments and
+jewels, in which he longed to adorn his wife. While he was engaged in
+painting the _S. Jerome_ for the queen-mother, a letter from Lucrezia
+aroused his longings for home to the uttermost; she--the wife who has
+been branded by the name of faithless--wrote that she was disconsolate
+in his absence, and that if he did not soon return he would find her
+dead with grief.
+
+Vasari, quoting this exaggerated letter, says in his first edition that
+she only wanted money to give her friends, but this also he retracts in
+the second. Whether it expressed her feelings truly or not, the letter
+had such an effect on Andrea's mind that he decided to return home at
+any cost.
+
+During Andrea's absence the house in Via S. Sebastiano, behind the
+Annunziata, was being prepared under her superintendence and with
+his sanction. His scholars had decorated the walls and ceilings with
+frescoes, and no doubt Lucrezia was as anxious for him to see the new
+house as he was to adorn her with Parisian brocades and jewellery.
+
+Being able to satisfy her ambitious soul, Andrea too readily flung away
+all his brilliant prospects to return, and willingly take again the yoke
+of the burden of his wife and her family. He made promises that he would
+bring her back to Paris with him, and the king in all faith allowed
+him to depart, confiding to him large sums of money for the purchase of
+works of art to be sent to France.
+
+Sguazzella, wiser than his master, preferred to stay in Paris under the
+patronage of Cardinal de Tournon. He painted a great many works, much in
+the style of Andrea, but with less excellence. It is possible that some
+of M. Lepiscie's long list are, in fact, the work of the pupil rather
+than the master. When Benvenuto Cellini went to France in 1537 he lodged
+in Sguazzella's house, with his three servants and three horses, at a
+weekly rate of payment (_a tanto la settimana_).
+
+But to return to Andrea: this is an episode in his life which we would
+gladly pass over if it were possible, for it forms the moral blot on a
+great artistic career.
+
+Returning home he fell once more under the strong will of his wife, but
+with his principles weakened by the effect of a luxury and prosperity
+which has always a greater deteriorating effect on a nature such as
+his than on a finer mind. Bringing grand ideas from the palaces of the
+French nobles, he not only fell in with Lucrezia's plans for beautifying
+the new house, but even surpassed her wildest schemes. The staircase was
+embellished with rich oaken balustrades, the rooms were all frescoed.
+Cupids hide in the Raphaelesque scrolls on the arches, classic
+divinities rest on the ceilings, but in the dining room the homely
+nature of the man who did his own marketing, creeps out. It is a
+charming room, the windows opening on a garden courtyard, where a vine
+trellis leads round to what used to be the side door of his studio which
+has its entrance in another street.
+
+The roof is vaulted and covered with exquisite decorative frescoes, but
+in the lunettes of the two largest arches are the domestic scenes of
+cooking and laying the cloth, spoken of at page 90. Two or three of the
+up stairs rooms are very fine, especially the one in which Andrea is
+said to have died. [Footnote: This description is due to the kindness of
+the present resident in the house, who kindly showed it to the writer,
+pointing out all the unrestored portions.] It is probable the furniture
+matched the style of the rooms, and that much money was spent on
+carved chairs and _cassoni_. Certain it is that the King of France's
+commissions were unfulfilled, and his money misappropriated.
+
+Andrea would have returned to France, but his wife, who had an Italian
+woman's dread of leaving her own country, put every obstacle in his way,
+adding entreaties to tears which the uxorious Andrea could not resist.
+As usual he tried to please her, and she only cared to please herself.
+
+He fell greatly in the estimation of the King, who was justly angry;
+albeit the artist salved his own too easy conscience by sending a few
+of his own paintings to Francis I., one of which, the _Sacrifice of
+Abraham_, still remains in France, and another a half length figure of
+_S. John the Baptist_. The place of this picture is much disputed; it is
+said to be at present in the Pitti Palace. Argenville speaks of it among
+the French pictures as if it had returned subsequently to Florence,
+while Vasari asserts that it never went there, but was sold to Ottaviano
+de' Medici. [Footnote: _Life of Andrea, del Sarto_, vol. in. p. 212.]
+As Andrea painted no less than five pictures of this subject, of which
+Argenville mentions that there were two in France, one of which was sold
+to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, it is probable that the Pitti one is not
+that painted for Francis I.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+ANDREA AND OTTAVIANO DE' MEDICI. A.D. 1521-1523.
+
+
+The Medici, always patrons of art, did not neglect to enrich their
+palaces with the works of Andrea del Sarto. Ottaviano de' Medici, a
+cousin of the reigning branch, was an especial friend of his, from
+the time that Andrea began the fresco of _Caesar receiving tribute of
+animals_ in the Hall of Poggio a Cajano. The commission came really from
+Pope Leo X., who deputed Cardinal Giulio, his cousin, to have the hall
+of the favourite family villa adorned with frescoes. He in turn handed
+over the direction to Ottaviano, who was a great amateur of art. It was
+designed that Andrea del Sarto should cover a third of the Hall, the
+other two-thirds being given to Pontormo and Francia Bigio. The payment
+of thirty scudi a month was arranged. In this Andrea has shown his
+genius in a style entirely new, the composition being crowded, the
+perspective intricate, the background a building adorned with statues.
+The subject being allegorical, he has given the reins to his fancy and
+produced a wonderful assemblage of strange beasts and stranger human
+beings, Moors, Indians, and dwarfs. There are giraffes, lions, and
+all kinds of animals, which he had an opportunity of studying in the
+Serraglio of Florence. The drawing is true and free, the figures and
+animals full of life, the colouring as usual well harmonised and bright.
+The Pope died about this time in 1522, and the picture was left to be
+finished by Allori in 1580.
+
+Ottaviano de' Medici, being a great lover of art, was often a patron
+on his own account; for him Andrea painted the _Holy Family_ now in the
+Pitti Palace. It is a most charmingly natural group: the Virgin seated
+on the ground dances the divine child astride on her knee, he is turning
+his head to the infant S. John who struggles to escape from his mother's
+arms to get to him. The fresh youth of the Virgin and the saintly age of
+S. Elizabeth are well contrasted. By the time this picture was finished
+the siege of Florence had begun, and when the painter took it to
+Ottaviano, he, having other claims on his means, excused himself from
+buying it, and recommended Andrea to offer it elsewhere. But the artist
+replied, "I have laboured for you, and the work shall be always yours."
+"Sell it and get what you can for it," again replied Ottaviano. Andrea
+carried the painting home again and would never sell it to any one. A
+few years after, the siege being over, and the Medici re-instated, he
+again took the _Holy Family_ to Ottaviano, who was so delighted that he
+paid him double the price for it.
+
+Ottaviano also bought from Carlo Ginori a _Madonna_ and _S. Job_, a nude
+half figure, which were by Andrea's hand. He it was who commissioned him
+to paint the portrait of Cardinal Giulio, afterwards Pope Clement VII.,
+and it was also at his instance that the imitation Raphael was painted
+for the Duke of Mantua. The Duke had set his heart on obtaining the
+picture painted by Raphael representing _Leo X. between the Cardinals
+Giulio and Rossi_, and got a promise of it as a gift from Pope Clement.
+His Holiness wrote to Ottaviano desiring him to have it sent to Mantua.
+But Ottaviano, appreciating the treasure as much as the Duke of Mantua,
+determined to secure it to the house of Medici. Under the pretence of
+having a new frame made he gained time, and meanwhile employing Andrea
+del Sarto secretly to make an exact copy of it, he sent that to the Duke
+instead of the original. So well had Andrea imitated the great master's
+style that every one in Mantua, even Giulio Romano, Raphael's own
+scholar, was deceived, and it was only some years later that George
+Vasari divulged the secret and showed Andrea's monogram on the side of
+the panel beneath the frame. This copy is now at Naples.
+
+The fresco at Poggio a Cajano abandoned, Andrea returned to the Scalzo,
+where he painted the _Dance of Herodias, Martyrdom of S. John Baptist,
+Presentation of the Head, Allegory of Hope_, and the _Apparition of the
+Angel to Zacharias_. The last was paid for August 22nd, 1523.
+
+About this time there was a great wedding in Florence. Pier Francesco
+Borgherini espoused Margherita Accajuoli, and Salvi, the bridegroom's
+father, determined to prepare for his son's bride a wedding chamber
+which should be famous in all ages.
+
+Baccio d' Agnolo had carved wonderful coffers, chairs, and bedsteads
+in walnut wood. Pontormo painted beautiful cabinets and _cassoni_, and
+Granacci, Francesco d' Ubertini Verdi, called Bacchiacca, and Andrea
+were all employed on the walls. Andrea furnished two pictures; the one
+tells the story of Joseph in Canaan, the other gives his life in Egypt.
+The style is that of Piero di Cosimo, but with greater excellence and
+more dignified figures. The landscape is highly finished and minute, and
+has a part of the story in every nook of it.
+
+The centre group, where Joseph leaves his father and mother to go to his
+brethren, is very dignified, although fine enough to be a miniature. In
+the second Pharaoh's palace is [Footnote: Reumont (_Life of Andrea del
+Sarto_, p. 134) dates these works 1523; the style, which is very much
+that of Piero di Cosimo, would seem to place them earlier.] represented
+as a medieval Italian castle, the dresses are all Italian, and as an
+instance of Andrea's versatility of talent they are very interesting
+paintings.
+
+During the siege of Florence, Borgherini was absent, and the picture
+dealer, Giovanni Battista della Palla, who prowled like a harpy to carry
+off treasures for the King of France, made an effort to obtain these
+paintings by inducing the government to confiscate them and sell them to
+him. But Margherita was equal to the occasion, and meeting the despoiler
+at her door, she poured out such a torrent of indignation, exhortation,
+and defiance as drove the broker away crestfallen.
+
+On the Medici's return della Palla was imprisoned as a traitor, and
+beheaded at Pisa. The paintings passed into the possession of the
+Medici, by purchase, during Andrea's life. [Footnote: Biadi, _Notizie_,
+&c., p. 146, note 2.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE PLAGUE AND THE SIEGE. A.D. 1525-1531.
+
+
+From 1524 to 1528 the plague desolated Italy, never entirely leaving it.
+During this time Andrea obtained a commission through Antonio Brancacci,
+to paint some pictures in the convent of S. Piero at Luco in Mugello,
+where he retired with his wife and her relations, and his pupil
+Raffaelo. They spent a very pleasant summer: the nuns made much of his
+wife and her sisters, and he passed his time in earnest painting. The
+fruits of his labour are a _Pieta_, a _Visitation_, and a _Head of
+Christ_--almost a replica of the one in the SS. Annunziata.
+
+The _Pieta_ is full of expression and feeling, but more realistic and
+less dignified than that of Fra Bartolommeo, which now hangs on the same
+wall of the Hall of Apollo at the Pitti.
+
+In colouring also there is a great contrast between the two, that of
+Fra Bartolommeo being deep, rich, and mellow, while Andrea's is more
+profuse, diffused, and wanting in depth of shadow.
+
+S. John and the Virgin raise the dead Saviour, the Magdalen and S.
+Catherine weep at his feet; S. Peter and S. Paul at the back express
+their grief in the manner natural to their characters. S. Peter, in his
+vehemence, flings up his arms in a madness of sorrow. S. Paul, with more
+dignity, is half stupefied with the intensity of woe.
+
+If those saints had been left in Fra Bartolommeo's _Pieta_, the
+two pictures would have had the very same figures, in each: but how
+different the composition, feeling, and expression! The Frate's group is
+a compact triangle; that of Andrea a scattered arrangement. The Magdalen
+of the Frate is overwhelmed with the very excess of love and grief, all
+of which is expressed intensely, yet her face is hidden; that of Andrea
+is a mere woman dressed in flying scarf and flowing garments, but with
+very little soul in her face.
+
+The characteristics of the two painters can be well studied in these
+works, so near together, so similar, and yet so different.
+
+For the three works painted at Luco Andrea was paid ninety florins in
+gold. The _Pieta_, was bought in later years by the Grand Duke Leopold,
+and now adorns the Pitti Palace.
+
+The _Visitation_ was placed in the church of the convent over a
+presepio. [Footnote: In 1818 it was restored by Luigi Scotti and sold.]
+Biadi gives the following document:--"Io Andrea d'Angiolo del Sarto, a
+di 11 Ottobre 1528 ho ricevuto fiorini 80 d' oro di quei larghi [_i.e._
+of two scudi each] della Tavola dell' Altar grande e di una mezza tavola
+della Visitazione, da Donna Caterina della Casa Fiorentina, Badessa di
+Luco." [Footnote: 2 Vol. in. p, 571, note.]
+
+Andrea was paid ten florins for the _Head of the Saviour_, through his
+assistant, Raffaello. This receipt would prove either that he went to
+Luco later than 1524, or that he returned there to finish the works in
+the year 1528.
+
+On their return to Florence in the autumn Andrea painted a fine work for
+his friend, Beccuccio da Gambassi, a glass-worker. It is an apotheosis
+of the _Madonna_, with four figures beneath--S. John Baptist, Mary
+Magdalen, S. Sebastian, and S. Rocco; not S. _Onofrio_, as Bottari has
+named it. The predella, now lost, had portraits of the patron and his
+wife. Crowe and Cavalcaselle speak of six saints in this picture, four
+standing and two kneeling.
+
+This description seems to point more certainly to the Sarzana _Madonna_,
+which is now in the Hall of Apollo, in the Pitti Palace. That for
+Beccuccio is described, with the four above-mentioned saints only, by
+all the Italian authors.
+
+The tabernacle, at the corner of the convent, outside the Porta Pinti,
+Florence, was painted about this time. It is now quite destroyed by
+age and weather; a good copy by Empoli, exists, however, in the western
+corridor of the Uffizi. It is a charming _Holy Family, with the infant
+S. John_,--a sweet laughing face. The Madonna is a portrait of Lucrezia.
+
+In the siege when the convent of the Ingesuate--at the corner of which
+it stood--was razed to the ground, this fresco, although loosened from
+the wall, was spared by the soldiers, who had not courage to injure it.
+The Grand Duke Cosimo was anxious to have it brought to Florence, and
+often came with engineers and architects, but they never hazarded its
+removal. [Footnote: Bocchi, _Bellezze di Firenze_, p. 482.]
+
+The Duomo of Pisa has five saints painted by Andrea; they originally
+formed one large picture in five compartments, and were painted for the
+church of the now suppressed convent of S. Agnes; but in 1618 they
+were divided into five pictures, and removed to the Duomo, where _S.
+Catherine Martyr_, _S. Margaret_, _S. Peter_, and _S. John the Baptist_
+hang on each side of the altar. _S. Agnes_, with her lamb by her
+side, is placed on a pilaster towards the southern door. This and _S.
+Margaret_ are especially graceful and expressive. There is much of
+the feeling of Correggio, but with more natural grace and less
+voluptuousness. The cutting and retouching had injured them greatly, but
+in 1835 Antonio Garazalli took off the repainting and restored them more
+delicately.
+
+In 1525 Andrea had a commission to draw cartoons for painting the
+balustrade of the Ringhiera--a kind of wide terrace in front of the
+Palazzo della Signoria, from which speeches were made to the populace.
+His designs were very beautiful and appropriate, the compartments being
+emblematical of the different quarters of the city; besides which were
+allegories of mountains, rivers, and virtues. The designs were left
+unfinished at his death, and the Ringhiera was never painted.
+
+In 1526-7 he worked at the fresco of the _Last Supper_, at S. Salvi,
+which was intended to have been done when he began the four saints
+there, in 1510, had not some misunderstanding between the rulers of the
+order prevented their continuation. [Footnote: Vasari's _Lives_, vol.
+iii. p. 224.] Even now he worked in a desultory manner, doing it bit by
+bit, but in the end producing a marvellous work.
+
+The refectory is a long vaulted hall, and the frescoed table, with its
+life-size figures, fills the whole arch of the wall opposite the door.
+One's natural impulse on entering it is to exclaim, "How life-like!"
+There is a great and living animation in the figures; the characters of
+the Apostles are written on their expressive faces. Judas is not placed
+away alone, as in many renderings of the subject, but is next to Christ,
+the contrast of the two faces being thus emphasized by proximity. S.
+Peter, though old, has all the vehemence and intensity of his character.
+Add to the feeling a brilliancy of colour of which Andrea alone had the
+secret, for without deep shadows, and keeping up the same intensity of
+tone throughout, he yet obtained great harmony and full relief where
+others would have produced a clash and flatness. Messrs. Crowe and
+Cavalcaselle say with justice, "From the contemplation of the _Cena_, at
+Milan, we should say that the painter is high bred; looking at that of
+S. Salvi, that he is accustomed to lowly company." [Footnote: _Hist. of
+Painting_, vol. iii. chap. xvii. p. 574.] But in some subjects a rugged
+strength is more important than a high refinement, and in the group of
+humble fishermen who formed the first church this is not out of place.
+If he could only have spiritualised Christ, nothing would be left to be
+desired.
+
+Andrea del Sarto was a member of a sacred company called the "Fraternita
+del Nicchio," for which he painted a standard to be carried in their
+processions. It is now in the Hall of the Old Masters in the Uffizi,
+and is a charming group of _S. James, with two children dressed in white
+surplices_--the habit of the company. The saint is caressing one,
+who kneels at his feet; the other has an open book in his hand.
+The draperies are especially graceful, and the expressions soft and
+pleasing.
+
+After finishing a portrait of the Intendant of the monks at Vallombrosa,
+which the said monk afterwards placed in an arbour covered with vines,
+regardless of the injuries of wind and rain--Andrea, having some colours
+still left on his palette, took up a tile and called his wife to sit for
+her portrait, that all might see how well she had kept her good looks
+from her youth; but Lucrezia not being inclined to sit, he got a mirror
+and painted _his own portrait_ on the tile instead. It was one of his
+later works, and Lucrezia kept it till her death. It is now in the room
+of portraits in the Uffizi, but much blackened by time; probably
+also from the tile not having been properly prepared. [Footnote: This
+portrait is given as a frontispiece.]
+
+The next year or two were taken up in producing a number of large
+altar-pieces, and in painting pictures for the dealer, Giovanni Battista
+della Palla, who was still intent on supplying the King of France with
+Italian works of art. For him he painted a _Sacrifice of Abraham_, which
+Vasari thinks one of his most excellent works. The face of the patriarch
+is full of faith, and yet self-sacrifice; the nude figure of Isaac,
+bronzed in the parts which have been exposed to the sun, most tenderly
+expresses a trembling dread, mingled with trust in his father; the
+landscape is also very airy and beautiful, and a characteristic group of
+a servant and the browsing ass is very effective in the background.
+
+He also painted a lovely picture of _Charity with three Children_ for
+Della Palla. Both these works were done with great care, for he hoped by
+their means to regain the lost favour of the King of France. It was
+too late for this, however; and, as it happened, neither of these works
+reached its destination. The siege of Florence took place about this
+time (1529); the dealer, Battista della Palla, had his head cut off in
+his dungeon at Pisa, and all hope of his mediation with Francis I. was
+at an end. The _Charity_ was sold to Domenico Conti, the painter, after
+Andrea's death, and thence passed into the hands of the Antinori family.
+The _Sacrifice of Abraham_ has had more vicissitudes. Filippo Strozzi
+purchased and gave it to the Marchese del Vasto, who had it in his
+castle at Ischia many years. Later it was sent from Florence to Modena
+in exchange for a Correggio, and Augustus II. of Saxony becoming its
+purchaser, placed it in the Dresden Gallery.
+
+This seems to have been a favourite subject with Andrea del Sarto, who
+repeated it five times.
+
+1. The one done by himself for the King of France.
+
+2. Also in France, having been purchased from the Grand Duke of Tuscany.
+(See Argenville.)
+
+3. The one mentioned above, done for G. B. della Palla.
+
+4. A smaller one, painted for Paolo da Terra Rossa; a fine painting, for
+which the artist asked so small a price that the purchaser was ashamed
+to pay it. Paolo sent it to Naples.
+
+5. An unfinished painting of _Abraham holding Isaac by the Hand_, now in
+the possession of the Zonadari family, who obtained it from the Peruzzi.
+
+During the siege, work was found for artists, but of an unpleasant
+nature. Andrea was commissioned, in 1530, to paint the effigies of
+some traitors on the palace of the Signoria. He dared not refuse,
+but remembering that his namesake, Andrea del Castagno, who had been
+similarly employed, gained the name of "Andrea degli Impiccati," he was
+anxious that the same name should not attach to himself. Accordingly he
+had an enclosed platform made, and giving out that his pupil, Bernardino
+del Buda, was going to paint the effigies, he worked at them himself
+secretly, till, on being uncovered, they seemed to be real persons
+writhing on the gibbet.
+
+No trace of them remains now, but the studies are in the collection of
+drawings in the Uffizi.
+
+A fine half-length figure of _S. Sebastian_, for the brotherhood of that
+name, which had its head-quarters in the street in which Andrea lived,
+was almost his last work in Florence.
+
+The siege was now over, but the influx of soldiers from the camp
+brought a return of the plague, which awakened great terror in the city.
+Andrea's mode of life and love of good living did not conduce to his
+safety; he was taken ill suddenly, and gave himself up for lost. Neither
+Vasari nor Biadi says he was entirely deserted by his wife; they only
+hint that she came to his room as little as she could, having a great
+fear of the plague.
+
+It is more than probable that Andrea himself kept her away from him, for
+his love was always unselfish, and he thought only of her good. However
+this be, he died, aged forty-two, on the 22nd of January, 1531, and was
+buried very quietly by the "Brethren of the Scalzo" in the church of the
+S. Annunziata. His tomb is beneath the pavement of the presbytery, on
+the left hand. His older biographers seem to think this unostentatious
+funeral a great slight to his merits, but if there were any doubts as
+to his illness being the plague, it would only have been a natural
+precaution to avoid spreading contagion by making his interment quite
+private.
+
+That Andrea had not wholly neglected his own family is proved by his
+will, which left his property (after paying back Lucrezia's _dot_ of
+100 scudi, and the money for the improvement of the new house in Via
+Crocetta for her and her daughter) to his brother Domenico, with
+the proviso that after his death half the bequest should be given to
+Domenico's daughter as _dot_, the rest to accrue to the hospital of
+the Innocenti (Foundlings). [Footnote: Ricordanze nel Archivio del E.
+Spedate degli Innocenti di Firenze. Biadi, _Notizie_, p. 127.]
+
+Lucrezia lived to a good old age, being nearly ninety when she died;
+she seems to have lived a very quiet life, and to have kept Andrea's
+paintings with great care, except a few only which she sold. The house
+in Via Crocetta passed many years afterwards into the possession of
+another painter, Zuccheri, who embellished the studio front with reliefs
+in stone, representing the paraphernalia of an atelier; but it is
+Andrea's name which lives in the house, as his memory does in the
+hearts of the Florentine people, and his works in the cloisters of the
+Florentine churches. The people of the city always seem to claim Del
+Sarto as especially their own. He is always _nostro pittore_, or _nostro
+maestro_-and indeed as a master of fresco he never was surpassed. In
+colouring he was in his way unique; in modelling, original and graceful;
+while the transparent clearness of his shadows and brilliant blending
+of tints in the lights render his handling incomparable. A little more
+refinement and aesthetic feeling would have placed him on a level with
+the great leaders of the Renaissance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+SCHOLARS OF ANDREA DEL SARTO.
+
+
+Andrea's scholars were numerous, though only a few rose to any great
+eminence. Of these, JACOPO CARRUCCI, "da Pontormo" (born 1494, died
+1557), was by far the most talented. Left an orphan at an early age, the
+charge of his sister devolved on him, and he placed her with a relation
+while he was pursuing his art training. He studied under a diversity of
+masters, including Leonardo da Vinci, Albertinelli, Piero di Cosimo; and
+finally, in 1512, he entered Andrea del Sarto's school, but did not
+stay long there either. Some say Andrea was jealous of his success; he,
+however, had generosity enough to praise and acknowledge his talent, and
+to show his appreciation by giving him important work to do in his own
+studio.
+
+Pontormo did the predella to Andrea's altar-piece of the _Annunciation_
+for the convent of S. Gallo. His hand is to be seen also in several
+of his master's works. He drew public attention first by painting two
+figures of _Faith_ and _Charity_ on the escutcheon of the Medici for
+Andrea di Cosimo, who had obtained the commission, but did not feel
+equal to executing it. Michelangelo, on seeing these figures, prophesied
+great things for the youth, who was at that time only nineteen years of
+age.
+
+The people of Pontormo, his native town, were so proud of him, that they
+sent for him to emblazon the arms of Pope Leo over the gate of their
+city.
+
+He was next employed by one of the festal companies of the age, called
+the Company of the Diamond, to design cars, banners, and costumes for a
+triumphal procession in honour of Leo X.'s elevation to the papal chair;
+and he organised a very suggestive array of the ages of man, illustrated
+historically. He decorated the Papal Hall for Leo X.'s entrance, and
+later began to be employed on more serious and lasting works.
+
+Some good frescoes of his existed in the convent of Santa Caterina, but
+were destroyed when the building was reconstructed in 1688.
+
+A very charming fresco of the _Visitation_ still exists in the court
+of the SS. Annunziata. It shows him as a good pure colourist, the flesh
+tints being especially tender; the composition is lively, full, and
+effective.
+
+In 1518 he painted a fine altar-piece for the church of S. Michele
+Visdomini, Florence, by commission of Francesco Pucci. The _Madonna_,
+seated, is showing the Child Jesus to S. Joseph, whose face is most
+expressive and full of smiling admiration. S. John Baptist stands near,
+at the sides are S. John Evangelist, S. James, and S. Francis, the
+latter kneeling in ecstatic admiration.
+
+In some cases he was placed in direct competition with his master,
+Andrea del Sarto, being employed by Borgherini to paint the coffers and
+cabinets in the same room for which Andrea did the _History of Joseph_;
+and again later at Poggio a Cajano, where the ends of the great hall
+were assigned to him to paint, Andrea and Francia Bigio taking the
+larger walls at the sides. On one end he designed an allegory of
+_Vertumnus_, with his husbandmen around him busy with their labours, and
+on the other _Pomona, Diana, &c_. Perhaps in these last he has carried
+his imitation of Andrea del Sarto rather too far in the matter of
+draperies, which are too profuse and studied. Indeed the whole works
+are overdone; he was so anxious to rival his master that he forced his
+invention, altering and labouring till all spontaneity was taken out of
+his work. Some of his frescoes were in the cloister of the Certosa, but
+they are not fair specimens of his best style, as they were done when
+the Florentine artists were smitten with the mania of imitating Albrecht
+Duerer, and in these he has entirely followed the harder manner of that
+artist without obtaining his strength. The frescoes are all scenes from
+the _Life of Christ_, and he spent several years over them; after which
+he painted an altar-piece.
+
+Giovanni Battista della Palla commissioned him to paint a picture to be
+sent to the King of France, and Pontormo returning wisely to his natural
+style, painted one of his masterpieces, the _Resurrection of Lazarus_.
+The Pitti Palace possesses a curious specimen of his work, the 11,000
+martyrs crucified in a wood in the persecution under the Emperor
+Diocletian.
+
+He rose to renown as a portrait painter, but lost patronage in later
+year by his capricious behaviour, refusing to work except for whom and
+when he pleased. In company with his favourite pupil, Bronzino, he did
+the frescoes in the Loggie of the Medici villa at Careggi; one Loggia
+was soon completed, to the great delight of the Duke, but Jacopo shut
+himself up in the second and allowed no one to see what he was doing
+for five years; when at length he uncovered the frescoes general
+disappointment was the result. He pursued much the same line of conduct
+in the frescoes of the roof of the Medici Chapel in San Lorenzo. He kept
+the chapel closed with walls and planks for eleven years, no one seeing
+his progress except some young men who removed one of the rosettes from
+the ceiling to peep in on him, but he discovered their plan, and closed
+the holes more assiduously than ever. The composition is as confused as
+it is diffusive; he tried to embody the whole teaching of the Bible, but
+becoming overwhelmed with the vastness of his subject, fell short even
+of the excellence of his own previous works. He died before this work
+was completed, of hydropsy, and was buried in the Servite Church.
+
+GIORGIO VASARI, better known as the chronicler of the works of other
+artists than for the excellence of his own, was born at Arezzo,
+1512--died at Florence, 1574. His father was a painter, and the family
+was connected by ties of relationship with Luca Signorelli of Cortona.
+Among the many masters under whom he studied was Andrea del Sarto.
+He did not remain long under his tuition, having contrived to offend
+Lucrezia in some way. He painted a great many frescoes at Arezzo, where
+he lived in his youth with his paternal uncle Don Antonio. Don Miniato
+Pitti, prior of the convent of Monte Oliveti, near Siena, next employed
+him to adorn the portico of his church. He had the good fortune to
+attract the notice of Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, who took him to Rome
+in his suite, where he gained much advantage by the study of the works
+of the great masters there. The Medici family, especially Andrea del
+Sarto's patron, Ottaviano, were his constant friends: and their palaces
+are profusely decorated by him. The Riccardi Palace has a room with
+fresco scenes from the life of Caesar. While painting these Duke
+Alessandro gave him a salary of six crowns a month with a place at
+his table, and board for his servant, &c. The palace has several oil
+paintings by Vasari, amongst which are portraits of the Duke and his
+sister. After the death of Duke Alessandro and Ottaviano he wandered
+from city to city, painting so energetically that there are few of
+the principal towns which do not possess some of his works, especially
+Naples, Pisa, Bologna, and Arezzo. The Palazzo San Giorgio of the
+Farnese family, in Rome, has a large hall richly frescoed by Vasari, but
+the best of his works are to be seen on the walls of the great hall of
+the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, where he has illustrated the battles
+of the Florentines, and in several other rooms of the same palace; he
+having continued all the later years of his life in the service of Duke
+Cosimo, by whom the palace was restored and decorated. His works are too
+numerous and not sufficiently important to catalogue or describe,
+his composition is overcrowded and wanting in perspective. There is
+generally a superabundance of flesh; muscular limbs in all attitudes
+form a great part of his pictures, but as the flesh tints he used were
+wanting in mellowness and shadow, and have turned pink with age, they
+compare disadvantageously with those of the more solid masters who
+preceded him. After all, Vasari's name and fame rest principally on
+the labours of his pen, not those of his brush. His "_Lives of the
+Painters,_" although not a model of precision in facts or chronology, is
+nevertheless the mine from which all subsequent art historians quarry to
+obtain their information.
+
+One of the most valuable books of the day is probably the new edition
+of Vasari with corrections and notes taken from the archives by Signer
+Gaetano Milanesi.
+
+FRANCESCO ROSSI, DE' SALVIATI (born at Florence, 1510--died at Borne,
+1563) was a great friend of Vasari; his real name was Rossi, his father
+being a weaver of velvets, but he obtained the name of Salviati from
+being the protege of the Cardinal of that name. His first master was
+Raffaello del Brescia, but in 1529 he, with his friend Nannoccio,
+entered the school of Andrea del Sarto, with whom they stayed during
+the siege. Becoming known by some paintings done for the friars of the
+Badia, Cardinal Salviati took him into his house, gave him a stipend of
+four crowns a month, and an apartment at the Borgo Vecchio, he painting
+any works the Cardinal wished. Francesco was not idle, a great number
+of frescoes, altar-pieces, and portraits, &c., &c., testifying to his
+industry. In his later years he was employed with his friend Vasari in
+the Palazzo Vecchio, where he painted the frescoes in the smaller Hall
+of Audience. These are principally scenes from the _Life of Camillus_.
+The story of the schoolmaster of Falerii is very spirited, and the
+_Triumph of Camillus_ varied and pleasing in colouring. Although
+melancholy and suspicious, often making enemies and losing patronage by
+misunderstandings, Rossi and Vasari were always faithful to their first
+boyish friendship, often working together, but never with any spirit
+of rivalry. Salviati's style was bold and spirited; he was rich in
+invention, but perhaps a little wild in the matter of draperies and
+bizarre costumes. His colouring is more pleasing than that of Vasari,
+but is diffusive and wanting in depth.
+
+DOMENICO CONTI never became famous, but in spite of want of genius, he
+was Andrea's favourite pupil. All his master's designs and cartoons came
+into his possession at Andrea's death, but he was unfortunately robbed
+of them soon afterwards. The inscription to Andrea del Sarto which once
+existed in the church of SS. Annunziata was put up by Conti.
+
+JACOPO DEL CONTE (1510-1598), who in Vasari's time lived in Rome, is
+chiefly noted for his likenesses of several pontiffs and personages
+of the Papal Court. There are a few altar-pieces by him in Rome, and a
+_Deposition_ in the church of the Misericordia in Florence, but he was
+almost exclusively a portrait painter.
+
+ANDREA SGUAZZELLA, called NANNOCCIO, remained in France after having
+accompanied Andrea del Sarto thither. Cardinal Tournon took him under
+his patronage, and he painted a large number of works in the style of
+Andrea.
+
+JACOPO, called JACONE, was another of Andrea's favourite disciples. His
+frescoes, of which some existed till of late years on the facade of the
+Palazzo Buondelmonte, in Florence, were much in Del Sarto's manner.
+He assisted his master in a great many of his works, while of his
+independent paintings many were sent to France; no doubt some of these,
+as well as Sguazzella's, figure under the master's name in that list of
+fifty works given by Argenville. He was too idle and fond of pleasure
+to rise to eminence, though he did some good frescoes in the Palazzo
+Capponi at Florence, and in the Capponi Villa at Montici, and assisted
+Jacopo da Pontormo in the Hall of the Medici villa at Careggi. He died
+in 1553, in great poverty.
+
+PIER FRANCESCO DI JACOPO DI SANDRO was said to have had some talent. He
+and Domenico Conti were employed among others in decorating the court of
+the Palazzo Vecchio on the occasion of Cosimo de' Medici's marriage with
+Leonora di Toledo. There are some altar-pieces of his in the church of
+Santo Spirito, Florence.
+
+SOLOSMEO, RAFFAELLO, and BERNARDINO DEL BUDA were three _garzoni_ in
+Andrea's studio. They were employed in the subordinate work and manual
+labour, but were not trained as artists.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+
+  1886. G. GRUYER. Fra Bartolommeo della Porta and M. Albertinelli.
+  1903. F. KNAPP. Fra Bartolommeo della Porta.
+  1922. H. GABLENTZ. Fra Bartolommeo.
+  1902. M. E. JAMES. Fra Bartolommeo.
+  1899. H. GUINNESS. Andrea del Sarto. (The Great Masters Series.)
+  1905. MASTERPIECES OF ANDREA DEL SARTO. (Gowan's Art Books.)
+  1928. F. KNAPP. Andrea del Sarto.
+  1864-66. CROWE AND CAVALCASELLE. A New History of Painting in Italy
+  from the 2nd to the 16th Century. Three Volumes.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea D'Agnolo, by
+Leader Scott
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