Andrea del Sarto's father was a tailor (_Sarto_) and so the son was
nicknamed "The Tailor's Andrew." He was born in 1486. His first
paintings were seven frescoes in the Church of the Annunziata in
Florence. They were "marvelous productions for a youth who was little
over twenty, and remain Andrea's most charming and attractive works."
(Julia Cartwright, _The Painters of Florence_.) Algernon Charles
Swinburne in _Essays and Studies_ ("Notes and Designs on the Old Masters
at Florence") says of Andrea's early paintings in comparison with his
later work: "These are the first fruits of his flowering manhood, when
the bright and buoyant genius in him had free play and large delight in
its handiwork; when the fresh interest of invention was still his, and
the dramatic sense, the pleasure in the play of life, the power of
motion and variety; before the old strength of sight and of flight had
passed from weary wing and clouding eye, the old pride and energy of
enjoyment had gone out of hand and heart.
"How the change fell upon him, and how it wrought, anyone may see who
compares his later with his earlier work.... The time came when another
than Salome [referring to Andrea del Sarto's picture of Salome dancing
before Herod] was to dance before the eyes of the painter; and she
required of him the head of no man, but his own soul; and he paid the
forfeit into her hands.... In Mr. Browning's noblest poem--his noblest,
it seems to me--the whole tragedy is distilled into the right words, the
whole man raised up and reclothed with flesh. One point only is but
lightly touched upon--missed it could not be by an eye so sharp and
skillful--the effect upon his art of the poisonous solvent of love. How
his life was corroded by it, and his soul burnt into dead ashes we are
shown in full, but we are not shown in full what as a painter he was
before, what as a painter he might have been without it."
The bare facts of this poem are taken from Vasari's _Lives of the
Painters_. Vasari, once a pupil of Andrea del Sarto, hated Lucrezia and
in his account spared no details of her evil influence. Later chronicles
give a somewhat more favorable view of her, but the main facts of the
story remain undisputed. Of the origin of the poem, Mrs. Andrew Crosse
(see "John Kenyon and His Friends" in _Temple Bar Magazine_, April,
1900) writes; "When the Brownings were living in Florence, Kenyon had
begged them to procure him a copy of the portrait in the Pitti of Andrea
del Sarto and his wife. Mr. Browning was unable to get the copy made
with any promise of satisfaction, and so wrote the exquisite poem of
Andrea del Sarto--and sent it to Kenyon!" For another literary
presentation of Andrea del Sarto see _Andre del Sarto_, a play by Alfred
de Musset.
15. _Fiesole_. A town on a hill above the Arno about three miles
northwest of Florence. See _Pippa Passes_.
40. _We are in God's hand._ Andrea's fatalistic view of life aids him in
escaping the poignancy of remorse.
65. _The Legate's talk._ The representative of the Pope praised Andrea's
work. For the high esteem accorded Andrea when he was in Paris at the
court of Francis I, see lines 149-161.
82. _This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand._ Eugene Muntz (quoted
in _Masters of Art_ series, in the number entitled "Andrea del Sarto")
says of Andrea's skill: "No painter has excelled him in the rendering of
flesh.... No painter, moreover, has surpassed him in his grasp of the
infinite resources of the palette. All the secrets of richness,
softness, and _morbidenza_, all the mysteries of _pastoso_ and _sfumato_
were his. It is not then as a technician that we must deny Andrea del
Sarto the right to rank with the very greatest. It is as an artist
(using the word in its highest sense) that he falls below them, for he
was lacking in the loftier qualities of imagination, sentiment, and,
worst of all, conviction." _Histoire de l'Art pendent la Renaissance_.