Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/375

Rh though he did not depart materially from that manner of his, which he had learned from the German. In the picture of Ippolito, Puntormo likewise painted a favourite dog, belonging to that noble, and which was called Rodon, making the animal so natural and so full of animation, that he might be supposed alive.

At a later period Puntormo took the portrait of the Bishop Ardinghelli, who was afterwards Cardinal, and for Pilippo del Migliore, who was his most intimate friend, he painted a fresco at his house in the Via Larga: in this work, which is opposite to the principal door of the house and represents a female figure in a niche, intended for Pomona, Jacopo Puntormo departed to a certain extent from his German manner, and seemed beginning to retrace his steps. Now Giovan Battista della Palla, perceiving that the numerous paintings of Jacopo were causing his name to become more and more celebrated, and not being able to procure such of his works and those of the other masters as were in the Casa Borgherini, for King Francis of France, as we have related,—Giovan Battista, I say, resolved that some painting from the hand of Puntormo should at all events be despatched to the French monarch, whom he knew to be desirous of such productions; whereupon he took measures to that effect, and finally succeeded in persuading Puntormo to paint for him a most beautiful picture: this was the Resurrection of Lazarus, and proved to be one of the best works ever produced by the master, or ever sent by that Palla (although he sent him vast numbers) to King Francis. For besides that the heads were singularly beautiful, the figure of Lazarus, whose spirit, returning to the dead body, might be almost seen to awaken the latter to life, was admirable to a degree which is beyond the power of words to describe; the process of decomposition, which had already begun to commence about the eyes, was permitted to leave certain of its vestiges, in that form which the spirit of life was entering once again; the hands and feet indeed, to which the vital forces had not yet penetrated, were suffered to remain wholly dead.

In a picture one braccio and a half high, which Jacopo