fresco, but has not been much approved:[1] now the latter circumstance may perhaps be accounted for by the fact that Andrea, who worked so well when he left himself to his natural powers, and did not place fetters on the endowments so richly imparted to him, had on this occasion, as it is said, imposed too heavy a restraint on his genius, thus doing injury to his work by an excess of care and study.
Of the many pictures which this artist painted for the city of Florence, it would lead me too far were I to discourse at length, I will therefore confine myself to remarks on those most distinguished. Among the best of these may be enumerated that which is now in an apartment of the house of Baccio Barbadori; the subject whereof is a full-length figure of Our Lady, with the divine Child in her arms, she is accompanied by Sant’ Anna and San Giuseppe; they are all painted in an admirable manner, and the work is held by Barbadori in the highest estimation;[2] there is also one of great merit and in a similar manner, which is now in the possession of Lorenzo di Domenico Borghini. For Leonardo del Giocondo likewise, Andrea painted a figure of the Virgin which is at the present time in the hands of his son Piero di Leonardo del Giocondo.
Two pictures, neither of them of any great size, were painted by Andrea del Sarto for Carlo Ginori, and these were afterwards purchased by the Illustrious Ottaviano de’ Medici, who has one of them now at his beautiful villa of Campi, the other is in the apartment of the Signor Bernardetto, the worthy son of so noble a father, with many other modern paintings by the most eminent masters, all of which are highly prized by the Signor Bernardetto, who frequently gives proof of the honour and esteem in which he holds the labours of all meritorious artists, as he shows himself indeed in all his actions to be a truly generous and magnificent Signor.[3]
- ↑ This fresco is in so grievous a condition that it may be considered almost totally lost.—Masselli. Borchi, in his Belezze di Firenze, affirms that in 1677 there were two angels in fresco, by Andrea, in a room of the same convent; but these also would now seem to have perished, or been whitened over.
- ↑ Now in the possession of the Cavalier Pietro Pesaro, a patrician of Venice.—Ed. Flor., 1832-8.
- ↑ Of these two paintings we know nothing more than that the one men-
