Page:The Voyage of Italy (1686).djvu/174

 ==The Voyage of Italy Part I page 128== over the arch in the antiporto, or open Porch built upon Pillars, are of the hand of Jacopo Pontorno, being but yet nineteen years old, which, when Michaelangelo first saw, he said, This Jacomo, if he continue thus, will carry up painting to the skies. Entering into the little court that stands before the church door; you see it painted round about in fresco by rare hands. Those Pieces that Andrea del Sarto made, are the best, and his head in white marble is set in the wall. In the cloister, over the door that goes into the church, is seen a rare picture in fresco, upon the wall of the hand of Andrea del Sarto. It represents the Virgin Mother with our Savior upon her knee, and St Joseph in a cumbent posture, leaning upon a sack full stuft and reading in a Book. The picture is admirable for sweetness and majesty, and is allied La Madonna del Sacco, and it got Andrea such credit, that Titian himself preferred it before all the pieces he had ever seen, and used often to say, that it grieved him, that he could net often satiaie his sight with the beholding of so rare a picture: and Michaelangelo talking once in Rome with Raphael Urbin concerning Painters, said thus to him : There is un huom corto, a little fellow in Florence (meaning this Andrea) who had he been employed in great matters as thou art, would make thee sweat again. Virtuosi make a great dispute which of those three painters was the most excellent: Raphael Urbin, Michaelangelo or Andrea del Sarto. But the wisest give every one his particular praise or excellency : Raphael was excellent