Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/154

146 which is in the hospital of the Ceppo, and is considered to be one of the best painting's in that city.

Lorenzo painted many portraits, and among these was that of himself, taken while he was young; this is now in the possession of his disciple, Giovanni Jacopo, a painter in Florence, with many other things left to him by Lorenzo, among which is the portrait of Pietro Perugino and that of Andrea del Verrocchio, his master. The portrait of Girolamo Benevieni, a very learned man, and an intimate friend of Lorenzo, is likewise among those taken by that master.

For the Brotherhood of San Sebastiano, who have their seat behind the church of the Servites in Florence, Lorenzo painted a picture representing the Virgin, with San Sebastiano and other saints: and for the altar of San Giuseppe in Santa Maria del Fiore, he painted a figure of that saint. To Montepulciano, Lorenzo sent a work of great merit, which is now in the Church of Sant’ Agostino: the subject of this picture is the Crucifix, with Our Lady and San Giovanni, figures which are very carefully executed. But the best work of this master, and that on which he expended so much thought and care, that he would seem to have been desirous of surpassing himself, is one which will be found in a chapel of the Monastery of the Cestello, and which represents the Virgin with San Giuliano and San Niccolo. Whoever shall desire to see the care with which those artists who desire that the works they execute in oil should be secure of duration, have thought it needful to proceed, let him examine this picture, which is executed with an assiduous delicacy that could not possibly be surpassed.

On one of the pillars of Or San Michele, Lorenzo, while still very young, depicted a figure of San Bartolommeo; and for the nuns of Santa Chiara in Florence, he painted a