And now, while I was seeking to obtain renown, riches, and honour, beneath the protection of Duke Alessandro, the poor Prince was cruelly assassinated, and every hope of fortune which I had promised to myself by means of his favour was thus taken from me. Wherefore, having thus in a few years lost Pope Clement, Ippolito, and Alessandro, I resolved, by the advice of Messer Ottaviano, to follow no longer the fortune of Courts, but to think of Art alone, although it would have been easy for me to have fixed myself with the new Duke, Signor Cosimo de’ Medici. Proceeding, therefore, with the before-mentioned Altar-piece and Facade for San Rocco at Arezzo, with the frame thereof, I began to take order for repairing to Rome, when, by means of Messer Giovanni Pollastra,[1] I was invited (as it pleased God, to whom I have ever commended myself, and whose goodness I acknowledge, and ever have acknowledged) to Camaldoli, of which Congregation Messer Giovanni was the chief; the fathers of that Hermitage desiring me to examine the works which they were about to have executed in their Church.
Here the Alpine solitude and profound stillness of the place delighted me greatly; and although I perceived that at the first those venerable fathers, seeing me to be so young, began to doubt of the matter; yet, taking courage, I discoursed to them in such a manner that they resolved to accept my services, and permitted me to execute the pictures in oil and fresco, which they had determined to have painted in their Church. Now the fathers desired that the picture of the High Altar should be painted before any other part of the work, but I proved to them by good reasons that it was better first to complete one of those for the minor altars in the middle aisle, when, if this pleased them, I could proceed with the rest. I refused, moreover, to make any fixed agreement as to the price at that time, considering that if my work pleased the monks they might pay me what they found right, but if it did not satisfy their expectations I.was ready to keep the picture for myself; and they, finding these conditions upright and favourable to themselves, were content to have the work commenced at once.
The subject they chose was Our Lady holding the Infant Christ in her arms, with San Giovanni Battista and San
- ↑ To whom our author addressed a most pleasing letter on the subject of his abode at the Camaldoli. See Lettera xvii., loc. cit.
