Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/552

540 on which he said so much, and sought to persuade me with so many good reasons, that, thus pressed by him, I resolved at length to do what I had never before chosen to do, that is to take a wife; and I married accordingly, as was his desire, a daughter of the noble Are tine citizen, Francesco Sacci.

Having returned to Florence, I painted a large picture of Our Lady, with numerous figures, according to a new in* vention. This was taken by Messer Bindo Altoviti, who gave me a hundred crowns of gold for the same; and it is now in his house at Rome, to which city Messer Bindo took it. I painted many other pictures at the same time, as for example, for Messer Bernardetto de’ Medici, for the eminent physician, Messer Bartolommeo Strada, who was my friend, with other things for many others, also my friends; but of these works I need make no further mention.

Now in those days, Gismondo Martelli nad died in Florence, and having left orders in his will that a picture, with Our Lady, and certain Saints, should be painted for the Chapel of that noble family, which is in the Church of San Lorenzo, I was applied to, for the execution of the same, by Luigi and Pandolfo Martelli, with Messer Cosimo Bartoli, all my friends. Wherefore, having received permission from Luke Cosimo, patron, and chief superintendent of that Church, I accepted the work, but on condition that, in allusion to the name of the Testator, I should be permitted to execute a Story from the Life of San Sigismondo, choosing the subject thereof at my pleasure. This agreement concluded, I remembered having heard that Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, the architect of the Church, had erected all the Chapels, with a view to the execution therein, not of small paintings, but of one large picture, occupying the whole space in each one; for which cause, regarding the honour to be derived from the work, rather than the moderate sum which I was to obtain from the owners of the chapel, who intended to have a small picture, of few figures only, I depicted the death, or more properly the martyrdom, of the King, San Sigismondo, in a great picture, ten braccia wide and thirteen high, showing himself, his Queen, and their two