amusements as usual, under the pretext that he had to prepare certain drawings of importance. Domenico, having thus gone forth alone to his recreations, Andrea, disguising his person, set himself to wait for his companion’s return at the corner of a street; and when Domenico, on his way home, arrived at the place, he fell upon him with a certain leaden weight, and therewith crushed the lute and chest of his victim with repeated blows. But even this did not appear to him sufficient for his purpose, and with the same weapon he struck his victim heavily on the head; then, leaving him lying on the ground, he returned to his room in Santa Maria Nuova, where, having locked the door, he sat down to his drawing as he had been left by Domenico.
Meanwhile the noise had been heard, and the servants hastening out, and, finding what had happened, went first to call Andrea, and to relate the bad news to the traitor and murderer himself; who, running to where the others all stood around Domenico, was not to be consoled, nor did he cease from crying, “Alas my brother! alas my brother!”[1] Finally, the murdered man expired in his arms, and in spite of all the efforts made to discover who had committed that homicide, it was never known, nor would the truth ever have been made manifest, if Andrea himself, finding his death approaching, had not divulged it in confession.[2]
In San Miniato-fra-le-Torri, in Florence, Andrea dal Castagno painted a picture, the subject of which is an Assumption of the Virgin, with two figures; and in a tabernacle at Lanchetta, beyond the gate of the Croce, he painted another, also representing Our Lady. The same
- ↑ Some doubt has of late been thrown on this story, which does not appear to rest on any very good authority. The motive for the committal of that atrocious crime, by which the memory of Andrea dal Castagno has been rendered for ever odious, has been usually said to have been his desire to be the sole possessor of the secret imparted to him by Domenico, a motive of which Vasari says nothing, and which later writers, Rumohr and Gaye, for example, declare could not have existed. For the reasons with which they support this opinion, we refer the reader to their works so often cited.
- ↑ Della Valle, who accepts the usual version of this story, accounts for the secrecy of the confessional having been violated by the supposition that Andrea had charged the priest to make known his guilt, to the intent that no innocent person should thenceforward be unjustly suspected of the crime.
