with the Magdalen embracing his feet, and San Giovanni Evangelista supporting the head, which he sustains on one knee. San Pietro weeping in great sorrow, is also in this picture, with San Paolo, whose arms are cast wide apart, and who mournfully contemplates the body of his departed Lord.[1] And of a truth, Giuliano completed this picture with so much love, consideration, and judgment, that as it was then highly commended, so will it ever continue to be so, and with good reason.
At a later period Giuliano painted the Abduction of Dina, for Cristofano Ranieri, and this too was a picture which had in like manner been left unfinished by the above-named Fra Bartolommeo. A work similar to this, and also by Giuliano Bugiardini, was sent into France.[2]
No long time afterwards, having been induced to visit Bologna by certain friends of his, Giuliano executed some portraits from the life, with a picture in oil for a chapel in the new choir of San Francesco. The subject of the latter was Our Lady with certain Saints; and in Bologna, as there were not many masters there, it was held to be a good and praiseworthy performance.[3]
Returning to Florence, Giuliano painted five pictures from the life of Our Lady, for a person whose name I do not know, but the works are now in the possession of Maestro Andrea Pasquali, Physician to his Excellency, and a highly distinguished man. Messer Palla Rucellai likewise gave him a picture, which he desired to have placed on the altar belonging to his family, in the church of Santa Maria Novella: in this Giuliano began to depict the Martyrdom of the Virgin St. Catherine— but what did he make of it? Twelve years did he keep the work in hand, nor in all that time could he once bring it to a conclusion; and all this for lack of invention, he not knowing how to represent the many and varied circumstances that must be delineated by him who would describe that martyr-
- ↑ The figures of S.S. Peter and Paul are no longer to be distinguished, having been covered over with whitewash, but at what time this barbarous operation was performed we cannot say.— Masselli.
- ↑ St. Anthony of Padua namely, and St. Catherine of the Wheels, with San Giovannino. The work is now in the Gallery of Bologna.—Ed. Flor., 1832-8.
- ↑ Not because there were no masters in Bologna, but because the greater part of them were then absent. —Ibid.
