Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/375

1531] art to adorn her home, and show herself to be a worthy daughter of this noble and ancient race."

In 1524, a sudden outbreak of the plague drove Andrea and his family to take refuge in the convent of S. Piero in Val Mugello, where the abbess and nuns entertained him hospitably, and he painted the well-known Deposition in the Pitti, as well as two smaller pictures which have disappeared. The admirable sketch of the Dead Christ in red chalk is in the Louvre, while a study of the Magdalene's head is in the Uffizi collection. But masterly as is the drawing and delicate the colour of this fine work, it falls far short of Perugino or Fra Bartolommeo's Depositions in depth and tenderness of feeling. We are conscious of the same lack of elevation and pathos in the Last Supper, which Andrea painted in the refectory of the Vallombrosan monks at the convent of S. Salvi, outside the Porta della Croce. The commission for this fresco had been given to the painter in June, 1519, immediately after his return from France, but the work was only completed seven years later. Andrea bestowed infinite pains on this fresco, "painting," Vasari tells us, "but little at a time, as he felt inclined, and making every part as perfect as he could." If he failed to give the subject Leonardo's ideal grandeur and solemnity, and his Last Supper cannot compare with the Cenacolo at Milan, he has at least succeeded in producing a more pleasing and beautiful representation of the scene than any other Tuscan master. It is said that during the siege of Florence, when the invading army destroyed all the convents and hospitals without the walls, a troop of soldiers pulled down the bell-tower of S. Salvi, and were