At this time I paid much attention to the counsels of Michelagnolo, whose advice I took in respect of all my works, he, in his goodness, giving me numerous proofs of affection; and among other marks of kindness he advised me, after having seen some of my designs, to set myself anew, and with a better manner, to the study of Architecture, which I should very probably never have done, had not that most excellent man said what he did to me, but this modesty commands me to refrain from repeating.
At the Feast of San Piero in that year, the heat at Rome was insupportable; and having spent in the city the whole winter of 1543, I then returned to Florence, where, in the house of Messer Ottaviano de’ Medici, which I might even call my own, I painted for his gossip, the Lucchese Messer Biagio Mei, a picture of which the thought was that represented in the one executed for Messer Bindo, and placed in the church of Sant’ Apostolo; but the work, excepting only the composition, was varied in every particular: being finished, it was placed in the chapel of Messer Bigio, which is in the church of San Piero Cigoli in Lucca. In a second picture of similar size, seven braccia high and four wide that is to say, I depicted Our Lady with SS. Jeronimo, Luca, Cecilia, Marta, Agostino, and Gruido the Hermit; this was put up in the Cathedral of Pisa, where there are many others by the hands of eminent artists.
I had no sooner completed the above than the Superintendent of works to that Cathedral commissioned me to paint another, in which, as there was also to be the Madonna, I sought variety by placing the Dead Christ in the lap of the Virgin at the foot of the cross, while the Thieves remain on their crosses above them; the Maries, Nicodemus, and the Saints to whom the chapel for which the picture was destined is dedicated, stand around the group; all which varied the composition and added grace to the story.
Returning to Rome in 1544, I made numerous pictures for different friends, of which it is not needful to make any record; but I may name one which I painted for Messer Bindo Altoviti, who had again received me into his own house; this was a Venus, which I executed from the design of Michelagnolo. For the Florentine merchant, Galeotto da Girone, I painted a Deposition from the Cross in oil, and this was placed in the chapel of Girone, which is in the
