Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/366

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Having returned to Florence, Jacopo painted a seated figure of Sant’ Agostino in the act of bestowing his benediction; while Angels, in the form of beautiful children, nude and hovering in the air, are seen above him. This picture has now been placed over an altar in the small church which belongs to the nuns of San Clemente, and is situate in the Via San Gallo. About the same time Puntormo finished a picture, the subject of which was a Pieta, and here too are angels represented by nude children, which are very beautiful, the entire picture is indeed a truly admirable one and was greatly prized by certain Ragusan merchants, for whom it was that Puntormo painted it. There is an exceedingly fine landscape in this work, taken for the most part from a print by Albert Dürer.

The same master produced a picture of Our Lady with the Divine Child in her arms, and surrounded by angels in the form, of children, this is now in the house of Alessandro Neroni; one of similar subject, the Madonna that is to say, but differing materially from the above-named, and in another manner, was executed by Jacopo for some Spaniards: many years afterwards it was on the point of being sold to a broker or picture dealer, but this becoming known to Bronzino he caused it to be purchased by Messer Bartolommeo Panciatichi.

In the year 1552 there was a slight attack of plague in Florence, when many persons left the city to avoid that most highly contagious disease, and to place their lives in security; our artist also found an opportunity for removing himself to a distance, and that happened on this wise. A certain Prior of the Certosa, which had been erected by the Acciaiuoli family at about three miles from Florence, was about to cause some pictures to be painted in the angles of a large and beautiful cloister surrounding a fine meadow, and these he placed in the hands of Puntormo; when sought for to undertake this work, therefore, Jacopo accepted the proposal most willingly, and departed at once for the Certosa, taking with him 11 Bronzino and no one else.

The manner of life here presented to him, that tranquillity, that silence, that solitude—all things, at a word, were found