in it, however much he may have strained and done violence to his genius. But as our artist died a short time before the work had reached its completion,[1] some assert that his death was caused by grief, seeing that he did himself become eventually very much dissatisfied with his performance on that occasion; but the truth is, that being old and having previously exhausted himself with heavy labour in the taking of portraits, making models of clay, and working in fresco, he fell into hydropsy, and this disease it was by which his life was ultimately destroyed, an event that happened when he had attained his sixty-fifth year.[2]
After the death of Jacopo da Puntormo, numerous designs, cartoons, and models, were found in his house, with a picture by his hand of Our Lady, completed according to appearance many years before, and which was admirably well done, as well as in a very good manner: this work was sold by the heirs of Jacopo to Piero Salviati. Puntormo was buried in the first cloister of the church which belongs to the Servite monks, and beneath that picture of the Yisitation which he had himself painted there many years previously. He was honourably attended to his grave by all the painters, sculptors, and architects then in Florence.[3]
Jacopo da Puntormo was a man of frugal habits and regular life: in his clothing and mode of existence he was rather sparing and poor than liberal or nice, and almost
- ↑ Moreni, Continuazione alia Sloria della Basilica di San Lorenzo, tom. ii. p. 119, has a passage from the Diario of Agostino Lupini, from which we learn that the work was completed by Bronzino, two years after the death of Pontormo.
- ↑ According to an inscription copied from a wall of the choir of San Lorenzo, and which the authorities considered to be accurate, Pontormo died in his sixty-second year. This inscription, which existed until the destruction of the pictures, was as follows:— Jacobus Ponturmius Florentinus qui antequam tantum opus absolveret de medio in Caelum sublatus est, et vixit annos lxii. menses vii, dies vi., A. S. mdlvi.
- ↑ His remains were afterwards removed, and were transferred to the place of sepulture obtained for the Professors of painting, sculpture, and the other arts of design by Fra Gio. Angelo Montorsoli, and intended to serve for himself as well as for them. This burial-place was in the Chapter House of the Servite Monks, now the Chapel of St. Luke (Cappella di San Luca). —Ed. Flor., 1832-8.
