Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/366

316 Vasari describes the wonderful masques and suppers held in the clubs which they formed among themselves. There was the famous Club of the Paiolo, or Cauldron, which met at Rustici's house, where dishes of the most elaborate kinds were provided by each of the twelve members, and Andrea, on one occasion, designed a temple in imitation of the Baptistery, with mosaics of jelly, columns of sausages, and choir and priests represented by birds and hooded pigeons. Another evening he recited a comic Greek poem, called the Battle of the Mice, and said to have been composed by Ottaviano de' Medici, who was himself a member of the Club, which excited great merriment among the company. No less popular were the meetings of the Society of the Trowel, where the members appeared in mason's clothes, and acted comedies and plays, for which Andrea painted the scenery. A great change had passed over Tuscan art and artists since the days when Cennino wrote his Trattato, The religious spirit which marked societies and guilds of painters in those early times had entirely disappeared, and the very character of the Florentines seemed to have changed. Few sixteenth-century masters approached art with the high seriousness of Leonardo or the deep devotion of Fra Bartolommeo.

But, at least, Andrea was not idle. Hardly had he finished the frescoes in the Court of the Annunziata, than he set to work on the chiaroscuro subjects from the life of the Baptist, in the cloisters of the Scalzi or Bare-footed brothers in the Via Larga. This series was to consist of twelve large frescoes, for which he was to receive 56 lire, and