Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/244

236 what was then ealled a Piagnone and abandoned all labour, insomuch that, finding himself at length become old, being also very poor, he must have died of hunger had he not been supported by Lorenzo de’ Medici, for whom he had worked at the small hospital of Volterra and other places, who assisted him while he lived, as did other friends and admirers of his talents.

In San Francesco, outside the gate of San Miniato, Botticelli painted a Madonna, the size of life, surrounded by angels, which was considered a very beautiful picture, Now Sandro was fond of jesting, and often amused himself at the expense of his disciples and friends. In allusion to this habit, it is related that one of his scholars, named Biagio, had copied the above-mentioned picture very exactly, for the purpose of selling it: this Sandro did for him, having bargained with a citizen for six gold florins. When Biagio appeared, therefore, his master said to him, “Well, Biagio, I Ve sold thy picture for thee at last, but the buyer wishes to see it in a good light, so it must be hung up this evening at a favourable height, and do thou go to the man’s house to-morrow morning and bring him here, that he may see it in its place; he will then pay thee the money,” “Oh, master,” quoth Biagio, “how well you have doneand having suspended the picture at the due height, he went his way. Thereupon Sandro and Jacopo, who w^as another of his disciples, prepared eight caps of pasteboard, such as those worn by the Florentine citizens, and these they fixed with white wax on the heads of the eight angels, who, in the painting in question, were depicted around the Madonna. The morning being come. Biagio appears with the citizen who had bought the painting, and who was aware of the jest. Raising his eyes on entering the workshop, Blaise beholds his Madonna, not surrounded by angels, but in the midst of the Signoria of Florence, and seated among those caps. He was about to break forth into outcries and excuse