Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/162

132 And since the best masters, such as Fra Filippo and Fra Giovanni have much work to do, and Fra Filippo especially is engaged on an altar-piece for San Spirito, which will take him five years, working both day and night, my great wish to serve you makes me presumptuous enough to offer myself for the work. And if I do it badly, I will gladly accept deserved correction of my faults, having no wish but to do you honour ... and if the work is so great that Cosimo thinks of employing several masters, I pray you to use your influence to obtain a small share in it for me, knowing as you do my ardent desire to accomplish some famous work, more especially for you. So I beg you to do your utmost, and promise that my work shall not fail to do you honour. I have nothing else to say just now, saving that if there is anything else I can do for you, I am always at your service; and I beg of you to send me an answer regarding the proposed altar-piece, and above all to inform me of your state of health, of which I am most anxious to hear. And may Christ prosper you and fulfil all your desires.—Your most faithful servant, Domenico of Venice, painter. In Perugia, the first day of April."

The altar-piece in question may have been one which Cosimo presented to S. Domenico of Cortona, towards the end of the year, in which case the artist did not obtain the commission; but it was probably owing to Piero's influence that he was invited soon after this to paint the choir of the Chapel of S. Egidio in the hospital of S. Maria Nuova. From 1439 to 1445, Domenico was employed on this work, and executed a series of frescoes on the Childhood and Marriage of the Virgin, in which he introduced many admirable portraits of the Medici and their contemporaries, as well as several women of rare grace and beauty. Vasari's assertion that Domenico