Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/91

Rh Lad received large benefactions both from him and his house.

In the year 1463, when Fra Filippo had completed this undertaking, he painted a picture in tempera for the church of San Jacopo, in Pistoja. The subject of this work, which is a very fine one, is the Annunciation, and contains the portrait of Messer Jacopo Bellucci, taken from the life, and depicted with great animation. There is also a picture representing the Birth of the virgin, by this master, in the house of Pulidoro Bracciolini; and in the hall of the Council of Eight, in Florence, is a picture of the Virgin with the Child in her arms, painted in tempera, on a half circle. In the house of Ludovico Capponi, likewise, there is another picture of the Virgin, which is exceedingly beautiful; and a work of the same master is in the possession of Bernardo Vecchietti, a Florentine noble of so much integrity and excellence that my words cannot do justice to his merits. The picture is small, the subject Sant’ Agostino occupied with his studies; an exceedingly beautiful painting. But still finer is a figure of St. Jerome doing penance, of similar size, and by the same hand, which is now in the guardaroha of Duke Cosimo: for if Fra Filippo displayed excellence in his paintings generally, still more admirable were his