beautiful panel-picture painted for the Madonna delle Carcere in his
native city, for which he had already caused a very handsome ornament of
marble to be made, one of the many painters proposed to him was Andrea.
Wherefore Messer Baldo, having more inclination for him than for any of
the others, although he had no great understanding in such a matter, had
almost given him to believe that he and no other should do the work,
when a certain Niccolò Soggi of Sansovino, who had some interest at
Prato, was suggested to Messer Baldo for the undertaking, and assisted
to such purpose by the assertion that there was not a better master to
be found, that the work was given to him. Meanwhile, Andrea's supporters
sending for him, he, holding it as settled that the work was to be his,
went off to Prato with Domenico Puligo and other painters who were his
friends. Arriving there, he found that Niccolò not only had persuaded
Messer Baldo to change his mind, but also was bold and shameless enough
to say to him in the presence of Messer Baldo that he would compete with
Andrea for a bet of any sum of money in painting something, the winner
to take the whole. Andrea, who knew what Niccolò was worth, answered,
although he was generally a man of little spirit, "Here is my assistant,
who has not been long in our art. If you will bet with him, I will put
down the money for him; but with me you shall have no bet for any money
in the world, seeing that, if I were to beat you, it would do me no
honour, and if I were to lose, it would be the greatest possible
disgrace." And, saying to Messer Baldo that he should give the work to
Niccolò, because he would execute it in such a manner as would please
the folk that went to market, he returned to Florence.
There he was commissioned to paint a panel for Pisa, divided into five
pictures, which were afterwards placed round the Madonna of S. Agnese,
beside the walls of that city, between the old Citadel and the Duomo.
Making one figure, then, in each picture, he painted in two of them S.
John the Baptist and S. Peter, one on either side of the Madonna that
works miracles; and in the others are S. Catharine the Martyr, S.
Agnese, and S. Margaret, each a figure by itself, and all so beautiful
as to fill with marvel anyone who beholds them, and considered to be the
most gracious and lovely women that he ever painted.
M. Jacopo, a Servite friar, in releasing and absolving a woman from a
vow, had told her that she must have a figure of Our Lady painted over
the outer side of that lateral door of the Nunziata which leads into the
cloister; and therefore, finding Andrea, he said to him that he had this
money to spend, and that although it was not much it seemed to him
right, since the other works executed by Andrea in that place had
brought him such fame, that he and no other should paint this one as
well. Andrea, who was nothing if not an amiable man, moved by the
persuasions of the friar and by his own desire for profit and glory,
answered that he would do it willingly; and shortly afterwards, putting
his hand to the work, he painted in fresco a most beautiful Madonna
seated with her Son in her arms, and S. Joseph leaning on a sack, with
his eyes fixed upon an open book. And of such a kind was this work, in
draughtsmanship, grace, and beauty of colouring, as well as in vivacity
and relief, that it proved that he outstripped and surpassed by a great
measure all the painters who had worked up to that time. Such, indeed,
is this picture, that by its own merit and without praise from any other
quarter it makes itself clearly known as amazing and most rare.
There was wanting only one scene in the cloister of the Scalzo for it to
be completely finished; wherefore Andrea, who had added grandeur to his
manner after having seen the figures that Michelagnolo had begun and
partly finished for the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo, set his hand to
executing this last scene. In this, giving the final proof of his
improvement, he painted the Birth of S. John the Baptist, with figures
that were very beautiful and much better and stronger in relief than the
others made by him before in the same place. Most beautiful, among
others in this work, are a woman who is carrying the newborn babe to the
bed on which lies S. Elizabeth, who is likewise a most lovely figure,
and Zacharias, who is writing on a paper that he has placed on his knee,
holding it with one hand and with the other writing the name of his son,
and all with such vivacity, that he lacks nothing save the breath of
life. Most beautiful, also, is an old woman who is seated on a stool,
smiling with gladness at the delivery of the other aged woman, and
revealing in her attitude and expression all that would be seen in a
living person after such an event.
Having finished that work, which is certainly well worthy of all praise,
he painted for the General of Vallombrosa a panel-picture with four very
lovely figures, S. John the Baptist, S. Giovanni Gualberto, founder of
that Order, S. Michelagnolo, and S. Bernardo, a Cardinal and a monk of
the Order, with some little boys in the centre that could not be more
vivacious or more beautiful. This panel is at Vallombrosa, on the summit
of a rocky height, where certain monks live in some rooms called "the
cells," separated from the others, and leading as it were the lives of
hermits.
After this he was commissioned by Giuliano Scala to paint a
panel-picture, which was to be sent to Serrazzana, of a Madonna seated
with the Child in her arms, and two half-length figures from the knees
upwards, S. Celso and S. Julia, with S. Onofrio, S. Catharine, S.
Benedict, S. Anthony of Padua, S. Peter, and S. Mark; which panel was
held to be equal to the other works of Andrea. And in the hands of
Giuliano Scala, in place of the balance due to him of a sum of money
that he had paid for the owners of that work, there remained a lunette
containing an Annunciation, which was to go above the panel, to complete
it; and it is now in his chapel in the great tribune round the choir of
the Church of the Servi.
The Monks of S. Salvi had let many years pass by without thinking of
having a beginning made with their Last Supper, which they had
commissioned Andrea to execute at the time when he painted the arch with
the four figures; but finally an Abbot, who was a man of judgment and
breeding, determined that he should finish that work. Thereupon Andrea,
who had already pledged himself to it on a previous occasion, far from
making any demur, put his hand to the task, and, working at it one piece
at a time when he felt so inclined, finished it in a few months, and
that in such a manner, that the work was held to be, as it certainly is,
the most spontaneous and the most vivacious in colouring and drawing
that he ever made, or that ever could be made. For, among other things,
he gave infinite grandeur, majesty, and grace to all the figures,
insomuch that I know not what to say of this Last Supper that would not
be too little, it being such that whoever sees it is struck with
amazement. Wherefore it is no marvel that on account of its excellence
it was left standing amid the havoc of the siege of Florence, in the
year 1529, at which time the soldiers and destroyers, by command of
those in authority, pulled down all the suburbs without the city, and
all the monasteries, hospitals, and other buildings. These men, I say,
having destroyed the Church and Campanile of S. Salvi, and beginning to
throw down part of the convent, had come to the refectory where this
Last Supper is, when their leader, seeing so marvellous a painting, of
which he may have heard speak, abandoned the undertaking and would not
let any more of that place be destroyed, reserving the task until such
time as there should be no alternative.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST
(_After the painting on a tile by =Andrea del Sarto=. Florence: Uffizi,
280_)
_Alinari_]
Andrea then painted for the Company of S. Jacopo, called the Nicchio, on
a banner for carrying in processions, a S. James fondling a little boy
dressed as a Flagellant by stroking him under the chin, with another boy
who has a book in his hand, executed with beautiful grace and
naturalness. He made a portrait from life of a steward of the Monks of
Vallombrosa, who lived almost always in the country on the affairs of
his monastery; and this portrait was placed under a sort of bower, in
which he had made pergole and contrivances of his own in various
fanciful designs, so that it was buffeted by wind and rain, according to
the pleasure of that steward, who was the friend of Andrea. And because,
when the work was finished, there were some colours and lime left over,
Andrea, taking a tile, called to his wife Lucrezia and said to her:
"Come here, for these colours are left over, and I wish to make your
portrait, so that all may see how well you have preserved your beauty
even at your time of life, and yet may know how your appearance has
changed, which will make this one different from your early portraits."
But the woman, who may have had something else in her mind, would not
stand still; and Andrea, as it were from a feeling that he was near his
end, took a mirror and made a portrait of himself on that tile, of such
perfection, that it seems alive and as real as nature; and that portrait
is in the possession of the same Madonna Lucrezia, who is still living.
He also portrayed a Canon of Pisa, very much his friend; and the
portrait, which is lifelike and very beautiful, is still in Pisa. He
then began for the Signoria the cartoons for the paintings to be
executed on the balustrades of the Ringhiera in the Piazza, with many
beautiful things of fancy to represent the quarters of the city, and
with the banners of the Consuls of the chief Guilds supported by some
little boys, and also ornaments in the form of images of all the
virtues, and likewise the most famous mountains and rivers of the
dominion of Florence. But this work, thus begun, remained unfinished on
account of Andrea's death, as was also the case with a panel--although
it was all but finished--which he painted for the Abbey of the Monks of
Vallombrosa at Poppi in the Casentino. In that panel he painted an
Assumption of Our Lady, who is surrounded by many little boys, with S.
Giovanni Gualberto, S. Bernardo the Cardinal (a monk of their Order, as
has been related), S. Catharine, and S. Fedele; and, unfinished as it
is, the picture is now in that Abbey of Poppi. The same happened to a
panel of no great size, which, when finished, was to have gone to Pisa.
But he left completely finished a very beautiful picture which is now in
the house of Filippo Salviati, and some others.
About the same time Giovan Battista della Palla, having bought all the
sculptures and pictures of note that he could obtain, and causing copies
to be made of those that he could not buy, had despoiled Florence of a
vast number of choice works, without the least scruple, in order to
furnish a suite of rooms for the King of France, which was to be richer
in suchlike ornaments than any other in the world. And this man,
desiring that Andrea should return to the service and favour of the
King, commissioned him to paint two pictures. In one of these Andrea
painted Abraham in the act of trying to sacrifice his son; and that with
such diligence, that it was judged that up to that time he had never
done anything better. Beautifully expressed in the figure of the
patriarch was seen that living and steadfast faith which made him ready
without a moment of dismay or hesitation to slay his own son. The same
Abraham, likewise, could be seen turning his head towards a very
beautiful little angel, who appeared to be bidding him stay his hand. I
will not describe the attitude, the dress, the foot-wear, and other
details in the painting of that old man, because it is not possible to
say enough of them; but this I must say, that the boy Isaac, tender and
most beautiful, was to be seen all naked, trembling with the fear of
death, and almost dead without having been struck. The same boy had only
the neck browned by the heat of the sun, and white as snow those parts
that his draperies had covered during the three days' journey. In like
manner, the ram among the thorns seemed to be alive, and Isaac's
draperies on the ground rather real and natural than painted. And in
addition there were some naked servants guarding an ass that was
browsing, and a landscape so well represented that the real scene of the
event could not have been more beautiful or in any way different. This
picture, having been bought by Filippo Strozzi after the death of Andrea
and the capture of Battista, was presented by him to Signor Alfonso
Davalos, Marchese del Vasto, who had it carried to the island of Ischia,
near Naples, and placed in one of his apartments in company with other
most noble paintings.
In the other picture Andrea painted a very beautiful Charity, with three
little boys; and this was afterwards bought from the wife of Andrea,
after his death, by the painter Domenico Conti, who sold it later to
Niccolò Antinori, who treasures it as a rare work, as indeed it is.
During this time there came to the Magnificent Ottaviano de' Medici,
seeing from that last picture how much Andrea had improved his manner, a
desire to have a picture by his hand. Whereupon Andrea, who was eager to
serve that lord, to whom he was much indebted, because he had always
shown favour to men of lofty intellect, and particularly to painters,
executed for him a picture of Our Lady seated on the ground with the
Child riding astride on her knees, while He turns His head towards a
little S. John supported by an old S. Elizabeth, a figure so natural and
so well painted that she appears to be alive, even as every other thing
is wrought with incredible diligence, draughtsmanship, and art. Having
finished this picture, Andrea carried it to Messer Ottaviano; but since
that lord had something else to think about, Florence being then
besieged, he told Andrea, while thanking him profoundly and making his
excuses, to dispose of it as he thought best. To which Andrea made no
reply but this: "The labour was endured for you, and yours the work
shall always be." "Sell it," answered Messer Ottaviano, "and use the
money, for I know what I am talking about." Andrea then departed and
returned to his house, nor would he ever give the picture to anyone, for
all the offers that were made to him; but when the siege was raised and
the Medici back in Florence, he took it once more to Messer Ottaviano,
who accepted it right willingly, thanking him and paying him double. The
work is now in the apartment of his wife, Madonna Francesca, sister to
the very reverend Salviati, who holds the beautiful pictures left to her
by her magnificent consort in no less account than she does the duty of
retaining and honouring his friends.
For Giovanni Borgherini Andrea painted another picture almost exactly
like the one of Charity mentioned above, containing a Madonna, a little
S. John offering to Christ a globe that represents the world, and a very
beautiful head of S. Joseph.
There came to Paolo da Terrarossa, a friend to the whole body of
painters, who had seen the sketch for the aforesaid Abraham, a wish to
have some work by the hand of Andrea. Having therefore asked him for a
copy of that Abraham, Andrea willingly obliged him and made a copy of
such a kind, that in its minuteness it was by no means inferior to the
large original. Wherefore Paolo, well satisfied with it and wishing to
pay him, asked him the price, thinking that it would cost him what it
was certainly worth; but Andrea asked a mere song, and Paolo, almost
ashamed, shrugged his shoulders and gave him all that he claimed. The
picture was afterwards sent by him to Naples ...[7] and it is the most
beautiful and the most highly honoured painting in that place.
During the siege of Florence some captains had fled the city with the
pay-chests; on which account Andrea was asked to paint on the façade of
the Palace of the Podestà and in the Piazza not only those captains, but
also some citizens who had fled and had been proclaimed outlaws. He said
that he would do it; but in order not to acquire, like Andrea dal
Castagno, the name of Andrea degl' Impiccati, he gave it out that he was
entrusting the work to one of his assistants, called Bernardo del Buda.
However, having made a great enclosure, which he himself entered and
left by night, he executed those figures in such a manner that they
appeared to be the men themselves, real and alive. The soldiers, who
were painted on the façade of the old Mercatanzia in the Piazza, near
the Condotta, were covered with whitewash many years ago, that they
might be seen no longer; and the citizens, whom he painted entirely with
his own hand on the Palace of the Podestà, were destroyed in like
manner.
After this, being very intimate in these last years of his life with
certain men who governed the Company of S. Sebastiano, which is behind
the Servite Convent, Andrea made for them with his own hand a S.
Sebastian from the navel upwards, so beautiful that it might well have
seemed that these were the last strokes of the brush which he was to
make.
The siege being finished, Andrea was waiting for matters to mend,
although with little hope that his French project would succeed, since
Giovan Battista della Palla had been taken prisoner, when Florence
became filled with soldiers and stores from the camp. Among those
soldiers were some lansquenets sick of the plague, who brought no
little terror into the city and shortly afterwards left it infected.
Thereupon, either through this apprehension or through some imprudence
in eating after having suffered much privation in the siege, one day
Andrea fell grievously ill and took to his bed with death on his brow;
and finding no remedy for his illness, and being without much
attention--for his wife, from fear of the plague, kept as far away from
him as she could--he died, so it is said, almost without a soul being
aware of it; and he was buried by the men of the Scalzo with scant
ceremony in the Church of the Servi, near his own house, in the place
where the members of that Company are always buried.
The death of Andrea was a very great loss to the city and to art,
because up to the age of forty-two, which he attained, he went on always
improving from one work to another in such wise that, if he had lived
longer, he would have continued to confer benefits on art; for the
reason that it is better to go on making progress little by little,
advancing with a firm and steady foot through the difficulties of art,
than to seek to force one's intellect and nature in a single effort. Nor
is there any doubt that if Andrea had stayed in Rome when he went there
to see the works of Raffaello and Michelagnolo, and also the statues and
ruins of that city, he would have enriched his manner greatly in the
composition of scenes, and would one day have given more delicacy and
greater force to his figures; which has never been thoroughly achieved
save by one who has been some time in Rome, to study those works in
detail and grow familiar with them. Having then from nature a sweet and
gracious manner of drawing and great facility and vivacity of colouring,
both in fresco-work and in oils, it is believed without a doubt that if
he had stayed in Rome, he would have surpassed all the craftsmen of his
time. But some believe that he was deterred from this by the abundance
of works of sculpture and painting, both ancient and modern, that he saw
in that city, and by observing the many young men, disciples of
Raffaello and of others, resolute in draughtsmanship and working
confidently and without effort, whom, like the timid fellow that he was,
he did not feel it in him to excel. And so, not trusting himself, he
resolved, as the best course for him, to return to Florence; where,
reflecting little by little on what he had seen, he made such
proficience that his works have been admired and held in price, and,
what is more, imitated more often after his death than during his
lifetime. Whoever has some holds them dear, and whoever has consented to
sell them has received three times as much as was paid to him, for the
reason that he never received anything but small prices for his works,
both because he was timid by nature, as has been related, and also
because certain master-joiners, who were executing the best works at
that time in the houses of citizens, would never allow any commission to
be given to Andrea (so as to oblige their friends), save when they knew
that he was in great straits, for at such times he would accept any
price. But this does not prevent his works from being most rare, or from
being held in very great account, and that rightly, since he was one of
the best and greatest masters who have lived even to our own day. In our
book are many drawings by his hand, all good; but in particular there is
one that is altogether beautiful, of the scene that he painted at
Poggio, showing the tribute of all the animals from the East being
presented to Cæsar. This drawing, which is executed in chiaroscuro, is a
rare thing, and the most finished that Andrea ever made; for when he
drew natural objects for reproduction in his works, he made mere
sketches dashed off on the spot, contenting himself with marking the
character of the reality; and afterwards, when reproducing them in his
works, he brought them to perfection. His drawings, therefore, served
him rather as memoranda of what he had seen than as models from which to
make exact copies in his pictures.
The disciples of Andrea were innumerable, but they did not all pursue
the same course of study under his discipline, for some stayed with him
a long time, and some but little; which was the fault, not of Andrea,
but of his wife, who, tyrannizing arrogantly over them all, and showing
no respect to a single one of them, made all their lives a burden. Among
his disciples, then, were Jacopo da Pontormo; Andrea Sguazzella, who
adhered to the manner of Andrea and decorated a palace, a work which is
much extolled, without the city of Paris in France; Solosmeo; Pier
Francesco di Jacopo di Sandro, who has painted three panels that are in
S. Spirito; Francesco Salviati; Giorgio Vasari of Arezzo, who was the
companion of the aforesaid Salviati, although he did not stay long with
Andrea; Jacopo del Conte of Florence; and Nannoccio, who is now in
France with Cardinal de Tournon, in the highest credit. In like manner,
Jacopo, called Jacone, was a disciple of Andrea and much his friend, and
an imitator of his manner. This Jacone, while Andrea was alive, received
no little help from him, as is evident in all his works, and
particularly in the façade executed for the Chevalier Buondelmonti on
the Piazza di S. Trinita.
The heir to Andrea's drawings and other art-possessions, after his
death, was Domenico Conti, who made little proficience in painting; but
one night he was robbed--by some men of the same profession, so it is
thought--of all the drawings, cartoons, and other things that he had
from Andrea, nor was it ever discovered who these men were. Now
Domenico, as one not ungrateful for the benefits received from his
master, and desiring to render to him after his death the honours that
he deserved, prevailed upon Raffaello da Montelupo to make for him out
of courtesy a very handsome tablet of marble, which was built into a
pilaster in the Church of the Servi, with the following epitaph, written
for him by the most learned Messer Piero Vettori, then a young man:
ANDREÆ SARTIO
ADMIRABILIS INGENII PICTORI, AC VETERIBUS ILLIS OMNIUM JUDICIO
COMPARANDO,
DOMINICUS CONTES DISCIPULUS, PRO LABORIBUS IN SE INSTITUENDO SUSCEPTIS,
GRATO ANIMO POSUIT.
VIXIT ANN. XLII, OB. ANN. MDXXX.
After no long time, certain citizens, Wardens of Works of that church,
rather ignorant than hostile to honoured memories, so went to work out
of anger that the tablet should have been set up in that place without
their leave, that they had it removed; nor has it yet been re-erected in
any other place. Thus, perchance, Fortune sought to show that the power
of the Fates prevails not only during our lives, but also over our
memorials after death. In spite of them, however, the works and the
name of Andrea are likely to live a long time, as are these my writings,
I hope, to preserve their memory for many ages.