Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/458

450 tinued the paintings of the chapel in the cemetery, to their completion. In this work he placed the portrait of the then Director, with those of certain Monks, who were eminent for their knowledge of surgery. He added the likeness of Gerozzo himself, who had caused the painting to be executed, with that of his wife, whole-length figures; the former kneeling on one side, the latter on the other. In one of the nude and seated figures of this picture, Mariotto Albertinelli painted the portrait of his pupil Giuliano Bugiardini, a youth with long hair, as it was then the custom to wear it, and so carefully has the work been executed, that each separate hair might almost be counted. The portrait of Mariotto himself is also in this painting—in the head, with long hair, of a figure emerging from one of the tombs there, as is also that of the painter Fra Giovanni da Fiesole, whose life we have written. This last is in that portion of the picture which represents the blessedness of the just. The work was all executed in fresco, both by Fra Bartolommeo and Mariotto; it has maintained and continues to maintain its freshness admirably, and is held in great estimation by artists, seeing that, in this manner, there scarely could be anything better effected by the art of the painter.

When Fra Bartolommeo had been several months in the convent of San Marco, he was sent by his superiors to Florence, they having appointed him to take up his abode as a Monk, in the convent of San Marco in that city, where his talents and good qualities caused him to receive numberless marks of kindness from the Monks with whom he dwelt. At that time Bernardo del Bianco had caused to be constructed in the abbey of Florence a chapel, richly and beautifully erected, of cut stone, after the designs of Bernar dino da Rovezzano; a work, which was then and is now much admired for its varied beauty. And to complete the decorations, Benedetto Buglioni had prepared angels and other figures of vitrified terra-cotta in full relief, placed within niches, with friezes consisting of the arms and devices of Bianco, mingled with heads of cherubims. For this chapel, Bernardo desired to obtain an altar-piece, which should be