When Andrea had finished this work, he found that certain colours and other materials were left remaining, whereupon he took up a tile and calling his wife, Lucrezia, he said to her, “Come hither, wife, and since we have these colours left, I will take your portrait, that all may see how well you have preserved your good looks even at this time of your life, but also that it may be likewise seen to how great an extent your features have altered, and how widely different this portrait will therefore be from those made at an earlier period.” But the woman would not remain still, perhaps because she had other things in her head at the moment; and Andrea, as though almost divining that his end was near, took a mirror and drew his own portrait on that tile instead, executing the same so naturally and to such perfection, that one might almost believe him to be in life. This portrait is now in the possession of the above-named Madonna Lucrezia his wife, who still survives.[1]
Andrea likewise painted the portrait of a certain Canon of Pisa who was a very intimate friend of his, and this likeness, which is a very life-like and beautiful one, is still in Pisa.[2] He afterwards commenced the cartoons for the paintings with which, by command of the Signoria, the balustrades of the Ringhiera[3] on the Piazza were to be decorated; and herein also he has displayed much fancy and power of invention, more particularly in the compartments appropriated to the various quarters of the city, and in the banners of the Capetudini,[4] which last are supported by children; there are besides ornaments consisting of picturesque representations of the different virtues, with the mountains and most important rivers of the Florentine dominions. But this work thus begun, remained incomplete by reason of Andrea’s death, as was also the case with a picture which he had commenced for the monks of Vallombrosa at their Abbey of Poppi in Casentino, but which was all but finished. The subject of
- ↑ It is among the portraits of painters in the Florentine Gallery; hut is unhappily much injured and blackened. This work also has been engraved by P. Lasinio.
- ↑ We can obtain no information as to the present place of this picture.
- ↑ The Ringhiera is an enclosed space, a kind of loggia or platform, used in the manner of an exchange, for the transaction of business.
- ↑ Bottari tells us that the word Capetudini was used to designate the assemblage of the Syndics or Consuls of the Guilds.
