Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/74

66 Pitti, Diotisalvi Neroni, and Giuliano de’ Medici, father of pope Clement VII. Beside the stone pillar he further placed Gherardo Gianfigliazzi the elder, and the knight Messer Bongianni, who wears a vestment of azure blue, with a chain round his neck; with Jacopo and Giovanni, both of the same family. Near these personages stand Filippo Strozzi the elder, with the astrologer Messer Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli. On the vault are four Patriarchs, and on the altar-piece is the Trinity, with San Giovanni Gualberto and another saint, both kneeling. All these portraits are easily recognized, from their close similarity to those of the same persons which we see in other works, whether of statuary or painting; more particularly to those existing in the houses of their respective descendants. Alesso devoted a large portion of time to this picture, being extremely patient, and liking to execute his works at his leisure and convenience. Pie drew exceedingly well, and in our book there is a mule, depicted from nature by his hand, wherein every turn of each hair, all over the animal, is represented with much patience and considerable grace of manner. Alesso was extremely careful and exact in his works, and of all the minutim which mother nature is capable of presenting, he took pains to be the close imitator; but he had a somewhat dry and hard manner, more especially in his draperies. Pie delighted in the representation of landscape, which he depicted with the utmost exactitude; thus we find in his pictures rivers, bridges, rocks, herbs, fruits, paths, fields, cities, castles, sands, and objects innumerable of the same kind. In the church of the Annunziata in Florence, at the back of the court, and on the wall where the Annunciation itself is depicted, Alesso executed an historical piece in fresco, but finished a secco, wherein he represented the Nativity of Christ, painted with such minuteness of care, that each separate straw, in the roof of a cabin, figured