Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/234

226 the last-mentioned work was an Assumption of Our Lady, who is surrounded by numerous angels in the forms of children; San Giovanni Gualberto, the cardinal San Bernardo, who, as it is said, was a monk of their order, Santa Caterina and San Fedele are beneath; this picture, unfinished as it is, is now in the above-named Abbey of Poppi.

There was also a picture, but not of any great size, which, when finished, was to have gone to Pisa, and which likewise remained incomplete at the death of Andrea. He also left a very beautiful picture that was entirely finished, in his house at the time of his death, with some others, but the first named is now in the possession of Filippo Salviati. It was about this time that Giovanni Battista della Palla, having bought up whatever paintings and sculptures of merit he could lay his hands on, had despoil''Ed. Flor.''nce of an infinity of fine works without respect or consideration, causing all that he could not get into his possession to be copied; his purpose being to send them to the King of France, for whom a series of chambers, decorated in the richest manner possible, was then in course of preparation, these apartments being more especially to be adorned with ornaments of the kind just mentioned. This Giovanni Battista was very desirous that Andrea should return once more to the service of the French King, and therefore caused him to paint two pictures, in one of which the master depicted Abraham, who is on the point of sacrificing his son, and that with so much care, that he is judged never at any time to have accomplished a work of more perfect excellence. In the countenance of the Patriarch there is a beautiful expression of that lively faith and steadfast trust which render him willing to offer his only son without hesitation, and which gives him strength to slay the child with his own hand. He is in the act of turning his