Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/346

338 demands, the study which he devoted to the difficulties thereof, and the zeal with which he laboured, by the imitation of the good, to promote his own improvement.

Now it happened that the Servite monks, on the occasion of a certain festival for which they were preparing, desired that the paintings of Andrea del Sarto and those of Francia Bigio should be uncovered for their feast; and as Francia had completed his work from the basement upwards on the night before the festival, these fathers, presuming and rash as they were, took it upon them to remove the coverings; not considering, in their ignorance of art, that Francia would most probably desire to retouch or improve the painting. In the morning therefore, when the pictures of Andrea and those of Francia were alike displayed, the news was soon carried to Francia, who was informed that his work as well as that of Andrea had been uncovered: this intelligence caused him such excessive vexation, nay, it grieved him so much, that he felt as one who was about to die; but immediately after, conceiving a violent rage against the monks for their presumption, and for the want of consideration which they had shown him, he hurried to the place at his utmost speed, and having mounted the scaffolding which had not yet been removed, although the painting was uncovered, he took uj3 one of the masons’ hammers which was lying there, beat the heads of two female figures in pieces, ruined that of the Madonna, and then falling on the nude figure, which was breaking the rod, he tore it almost entirely from the wall.

The monks hastened to the cloister at the uproar that ensued, and aided by certain of the laymen standing round, they succeeded, in restraining the hands of the painter, that he might not entirely destroy the whole work; but although they afterwards offered him double payment to restore his picture, yet the dislike he had conceived against them was such that he would never consent to do so. The reverence felt by other painters for the author of so admirable a work, as well as for the work itself, has in like manner withheld them from attempting its restoration, thus none have been found willing to finish it, for which reason it still remains in the condition we have described, as a memorial of the circumstance just related. So admirably is this fresco painted,