Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/105

Rh then a singularly handsome youth, and for whom he painted other pictures also, all of which are beautiful and executed with great care. Domenico likewise painted a picture which was the portrait of the Florentine courtezan, Barbara, who was very famous at that time, being exceedingly beautiful and much beloved by many, yet scarcely so much for her beauty as for her good parts and fine manners; she was besides more particularly admired as a most excellent musician, and one who sang divinely. But the best work ever executed by Domenico Puligo, was a large painting in which he depicted a figure of Our Lady, the size of life, together with Angels and Children, and a San Bernardo, who is writing. This picture is now in the possession of Giovanni Gualberto del Giocondo, and Messer Niccolo his brother, who is a canon of San Lorenzo, in Florence. The same master painted many other pictures which are dispersed among the houses of the citizens; some of these represent the half-length figure of Cleopatra, at the moment when she is causing herself to be bitten by the asp, and others have thQ Roman Lucrezia, stabbing herself with a dagger. There are besides many very beautiful pictures, and some portraits from the life, by the hand of this master, at the Porta a Pinti, in the house of Giulio Scab', a man who possesses no less perfection of judgment as regards works in our arts, than in those of the other high and renowned professions. For Francesco del Giocondo, Domenico painted a picture representing San Francesco receiving the Stigmata; this the owner destined for his chapel in the Church of the Servites, in Florence; it is exceedingly soft and harmonious in colour-