Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/291

Rh The painting in that hall of the palace of the Signoria, wherein the Council of Eighthnota hold their sittings, was executed by Filippo, who prepared the drawings for another large picture, with its decorations, to be placed in the Hall of the Council; but the death of the master ensuing soon after, this design was never put into execution, although the ornament or frame-work was already carved, and is now in the possession of Messer Baccio Baldini, an eminent physician and natural philosopher, who is a lover of all the arts. For the church of the abbey of Florence, Filippo painted a very beautiful figure of San Girolamo;nota and commenced a Deposition from the Cross, for the friars of the Nunziata: of this latter work he finished the figures from the middle upward only,nota seeing that he was then attacked by a violent fever, and by that constriction of the throat commonly called quinsy, or squinancia,nota of which he died in a few days, in the forty-fifth year of his age.

Having been ever courteous, obliging, and. friendly, Filippo was lamented by all who had known him, but more particularly by the youth of Florence, his noble native city; who, in the public festivals, masks, and other spectacles, were always glad to avail themselves of his readiness and inventive genius, for in these matters this artist has never had his equal. Filippo gave proof of so much excellence, in all his actions, as to have entirely efiaced the stain (to whatever extent it may have existed) left to him by his father—efiaced it I say, not only by the eminence he attained in art, wherein he waa inferior to none of his contemporaries—but also by the modest propriety of his life, and above all by an obliging and friendly disposition, the efiect of which on every ^ -t*

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