Donato Acciaiuoli.[1] In the chapel of the Cavalcanti family, in Santa Croce also, beneath the Annunciation of Donato, this master painted a Predella, whereon are depicted stories in small figures from the life of San Niccolò.[2] In the Casa de’ Medici he decorated a balustrade with figures of animals, which are exceedingly beautiful, as also certain coffers, on which he depicted small stories of jousts and tournaments, wherein are several horses, admirably executed. In the same palace may be seen, even to the present day, a painting on canvas, by the hand of Pesello, representing Lions pressing against a grating, and which seem to be really alive, others are on the outside of the same, and there is one in combat with a Serpent. On a second canvas Pesello painted an Ox, a Fox, and other animals, all very natural and full of animation.[3] In the church of San Piero Maggiore this master executed four stories, which are in the chapel of the Alessandri; the figures are small, and the subjects are taken from the lives of San Pietro, San Paolo, San Zanobi—the latter raising the Daughter of the Widow from the dead—and San Benedetto.[4] In the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, also in the city of Florence, he painted a Madonna; with two other most beautiful figures, in the chapel of the Orlandini family. For the children of the Brotherhood of St. George, Pesello painted a Crucifix, a San Girolamo (St. Jerome), and a San Francesco; and in the church of St. George he executed a picture of the Annunciation. In the church of San Jacopo,[5] at Pistoja, is a
- ↑ Lanzi declares that picture to be in the Gallery of the Uffizj; but it is not to be found there at the present time. Rosini affirms himself to have discovered it in Bologna, and gives an engraving of the principal group. — See Storia della Pitture Italiana, vol. iii. p. 16
- ↑ Bottara informs us that this predella or gradino was presented by a sacristan to Michael Angelo Buonarroti the younger, who gave a new one in its place. This beautiful gradino is now in the Buonarroti Gallery.
- ↑ The fate of these works is unknown.
- ↑ Now in the house of the Alessandri family, to which the work was removed when the church was destroyed on the 8th of July, 1784.
- ↑ Tolomei, Guida di Pistoja, p. 19, assures us that this picture was not in the church of San Jacopo, but in that of the Trinity. It was sold to a foreigner on the suppression of the Congregation of Priests, to whom the church belonged; and Waagen enumeratestliis work among those seen by him in the collection of Mr, Young Ottley. See Kunstwerke und Künstler in England, vol. i. p. 397.
