Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/465

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For the Nuns of San Giorgio-on -the-PIill, Granacci painted the picture of the high altar, the subject represented being the Madonna with Santa Caterina, San Giovanni Gualberto, the Cardinal San Bernardo Uberti, and San Fedele. This master likewise painted pictures of a round and square form which are dispersed through the city in the houses of the gentry, he also made numerous cartoons for windows, which were afterwards put into execution by the Frati Ingesuati of Florence. He took great pleasure in painting banners on cloth, which he did sometimes alone, sometimes in company with others; insomuch that in addition to the works named above, there are vast numbers of such things which he painted more for his amusement than for any need that he had to do so. Granacci worked in a very leisurely manner, was a man who desired to take his ease at all points, and avoided every kind of restraint and discomfort more carefully than most men. He was, nevertheless, very careful of his possessions, but without coveting what belonged to others; and as he did not burden himself with many cares, he was an agreeable companion, and fond of passing his life cheerfully.

Granacci lived to the age of sixty-seven, when he was attacked by some ordinary malady, attended by fever, which finished the course of his days, and he was entombed in the church of Sant’ Ambruogio, at Florence, on the festival of Sant’ Andrea the Apostle, in the year 1543.

I sometimes take a singular pleasure in noting the first commencements of our artists’ career, and in observing them gradually rising from the lower to the higher grades of our vocation, more particularly in architecture, seeing that this science has but rarely been pursued for several