Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/500

492 Francesco, I repeat, was a diligent painter, and was more particularly successful in the execution of small figures, which he executed to perfection and with infinite patience; an instance of this may be seen in San Lorenzo at Florence, where there is a predella by his hand to the picture of the Martyrs painted by Giovan Antonio Sogliani. There is also another predella by Francesco in the chapel of the crucifix, a work of admirable beauty.

In that apartment of the house of Pier Francesco JBorgherini, of which there has so frequently been mention made, Bacchiacca painted in company with the other artists employed there, executing many small figures on the cabinets and wainscot. In the ante-room of Giovan Maria Benintendi, which has likewise been more than once alluded to, Bacchiacca painted two pictures, the figures of which are small, and these too are singularly beautiful. The subject of one of them is the Baptism of Our Saviour Christ by St. John in the river Jordan:; this has a larger number of figures and is a better work than the other. He executed many other pictures also for different persons, but these have for the most part been sent into France or England.

Ultimately Bacchiacca was received into the service of Duke Cosimo, seeing that he was excellent in the delineation of all kinds of animals, and was therefore employed to decorate a study for his Excellency, which he did with great ability, covering the same with birds of various kinds, together with rare plants and foliage, all which he executed in oil most admirably well. He then prepared cartoons with so vast a number of figures, that they may truly be declared infinite, the subjects representing the twelve months of the year, which were then woven into magnificent cloth of arras made of silk and gold by Marco di Maestro Giovanni Rosto the Fleming, who completed them with a care and forethought, by which they were rendered such that better works in that kind could not be seen.

At a later period Bacchiacca painted in fresco the grotto of a fountain which is in the garden of the Pitti palace, and