Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/477

Rh with the Infant Christ in her arms, Santa Maria Maddalena and Santa Caterina being on their knees before her, while San Giovanni, San Bastiano, and San Giuseppe stand upright and at each side of the Madonna. In all the figures of this work, Giovan-Antonio acquitted himself much more creditably than he had done in those of the Duomo.

Having then nothing more to do at Pisa, he left that city, repairing to Luca, and in San Ponziano, a monastery belonging to the monks of Monte Oliveto, he received a commission from the abbot, who was a person of his acquaintance, to paint a picture of Our Lady on a staircase which forms the ascent to the dormitory. That work being completed, Giovan-Antonio returned to Siena, weary, old, and poor; but he did not long survive his arrival in that city: falling sick, and having no one to take care of him, nor any means wherewith to procure needful attendance, he took refuge in the great hospital, where he finished the course of his life in a very few weeks.

While Giovan-Antonio was still young and in good repute, he had taken a wife in Siena, the young woman being the daughter of very honest and respectable parents. In the first year of his marriage he became the father of a little girl, but his wife, being weary of the follies committed by this man, at length refused to live with him. Withdrawing herself wholly from her husband therefore, she supported her child by her labour, and on the interest of her dowry,