Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/350

342 to say nothing of the loveliness distinguishing the graceful and exquisite children, that it was considered the most admirable work in fresco which had ever then been seen. Beside the children that are with the figure of Charity, there are two others floating in the air, and holding a drapery attached to the Papal Arms; these are so beautiful, that better could not be; but all the figures have indeed very extraordinary relief; the colouring and every other particular are such, in short, that they could not be sufficiently commended.

Michelagnolo Buonarroti was one day examining this work, and considering that he who had accomplished it was but a youth of nineteen, he said, “This youth will be such, to judge from what we here see, that if he lives, and should go on as he has begun, he will carry this art to the very skies.”

The fame and credit thus obtained, having reached to the men of Puntormo, they sent for Jacopo and caused him to paint the Arms of Pope Leo over that gate of the castle which looks upon the high road, with two boys which are very beautiful; but the work has unhappily been already much injured by the rain.

The Carnival of the next year found all Florence rejoicing and in great exultation, on account of the elevation to the Pontificate of Leo X.: many great festivals were commanded, and among them two very magnificent and costly ones, to be given by two companies or associations of nobles and gentlemen belonging to the city. The chief of one of these companies, which was called that of the Diamond, was the Signor Giuliano de’ Medici, brother of the Pope, and it had received that name because the diamond is one of the devices of Lorenzo the Elder, father of Giuliano and of Pope Leo. Of the other, the name and symbol of which was II Broncone, the Signor Lorenzo, son of Piero de’ Medici, was the