Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/220

212 was very anxious to have it completed by Jacopo da Pontormo, yet he could never prevail on him to put a hand to it, a thing which is of a truth to be much lamented, and one that did great wrong to that building, which is one of the most beautiful halls that any villa in the world can boast.

On his return to Florence, Andrea del Sarto painted a half length and undraped figure of San Giovanni Battista; this picture, which was very beautiful, he executed for Giovanni Maria Benintendi, by whom it was afterwards presented to the Signor Duke Cosimo.

While his afiairs were going on in this manner, Andrea could not fail sometimes to think of his conduct in the matter of the French king, when he would sigh from his heart, and if he could have hoped to receive pardon for the fault he had committed, I make no doubt but that he would have returned to the service of that monarch. Nay, by way of trying how far fortune might be favourable to him, he determined to make an attempt, Tvhereby he should ascertain whether his abilities might not yet avail to restore him to favour. He consequently painted a figure of San Giovanni Battista, partially undraped, intending to despatch the same to France, to be presented to the Grand Master; yet, whatever the cause may have been I know not, but certain it is, that Andrea never sent it; he sold the picture, on the contrary, to the illustrious Ottaviano de’ Medici, by whom it was always held in high estimation to the end of his days. Our painter likewise executed two pictures of the Madonna for the same noble, and in a similar manner; these are now both in the palace of the latter.

No long time after these works were completed, Zanobi