Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/377

1531] air in her striped bodice with yellow sleeves, with the white handkerchief folded over the thick coils of chestnut hair. And he has painted himself too, from the early days when he was a graceful youth with dark eyes, sensitive lips, and long brown curls, down to the last year of his life, when he had grown stout and middle-aged, and the coarsened features and listless expression tell a melancholy tale of deterioration of character. A wonderful example of his technical skill is still to be seen in the copy of Raphael's great portrait of Leo X. and his Cardinals, which he painted, in 1524, for Ottaviano de' Medici. Pope Clement VII. had desired his kinsman to send this famous Raphael, which hung over a doorway of the Medici palace, as a present to the Duke of Mantua, upon which Ottaviano, unwilling to part from so great a treasure, employed Andrea to copy the picture, and sent his work to Mantua in the place of the original. So admirable was Andrea's copy, that even Giulio Romano, who had himself helped Raphael in painting the Pope's portrait, was completely deceived, until Vasari showed him Andrea's monogram with the interlaced initials on the edge of the panel.

In spite, however, of his untiring industry, and of the great reputation which he enjoyed in Florence, Andrea del Sarto never attained the position to which his rare talents entitled him. During the siege of Florence he suffered many privations, and was glad to accept a commission from the Signory to paint the effigies of some rebels who had been hung as traitors on the walls of the Podestà palace. But being ashamed of the task, and fearing that he might