Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/522

510 his Excellency that I had undertaken an amount of work beyond what it was possible for me to have ready in time, more especially as my want of men had much delayed the preparations, when Alessandro sent for me and repeated what he had heard. To this I replied, that the works were making fair progress, as his Excellency might assure himself by inspection at his pleasure; adding that the result of my labours would be their best encomium.

Having left the Duke thereupon, no long time elapsed before he secretly came to the place where I was working; and when he had seen all, he became to some extent aware of the malignity with which those who had received no cause for doing so were persecuting me. When the time came, moreover, all was found to be completed and in its due place, at the moment required, to the perfect satisfaction of Duke Alessandro, as well as of the whole city; while the works of those who had been more earnestly busied with my affairs than with their own, had in several instances to be put up in an unfinished state.

The festivals being concluded, I received from the Duke, in addition to the four hundred crowns due to me for my works, three hundred more, which were taken from those who had failed to deliver their performances completed at the time agreed for. With the help of my savings and these sums, I then married one of my sisters; and a short time afterwards I was enabled to make another of them a nun in the Convent of the Murate at Arezzo, giving to that convent, in addition to the dowry or alms, a picture of the Annunciation by my hand, with a Tabernacle of the Sacrament therein; this was placed in the Choir where the services are performed.

The Company of the Corpus Domini having then given me a commission for the picture of the High Altar in San Domenico, I painted a Deposition from the Cross therein; and shortly afterwards I commenced for the Company of San Rocco, the Altar-piece of their Church in Elorence.