driven from the temple; that of Alesso is in the figure of an old man, his beard shaven, and Y.^earing a red cap or hood on his head.[1]
Alesso Baldovinetti lived eighty years,[2] and when he perceived the approaches of age, being desirous of a place where he might attend to the studies of his profession with a quiet mind, he purchased admission into the hospital of San Paolo. Plere, perhaps in the hope of being more willingly received and more favourably treated, perhaps also by mere chance, he caused a great chest to be carried into the rooms assigned to him, giving it to be understood that there was a considerable sum of money contained in it. Believing this to be the case, the superintendent and other officials of the hospital, who knew that he had made a donation to their house of all that should be found belonging to him after his deatii, received and treated him with the utmost cordiality. But at the death of the painter, nothing was found in the chest but some drawings, a few portraits on paper, and a small book, containing directions for preparing the stones and stucco for Mosaic, with instructions in the method of using them. Nor was it any great marvel, according to what is said of Alesso, that no money was found there, since the master was so benevolent and obliging, that he possessed nothing which was not as much the property of his friends as of himself. One of the disciples of Alesso Baldovinetti was the Florentine Graffione, who executed the figure of God the Father in fresco, with the angels around it, which is still to be seen over the door of the Innocenti.[3] It is related that the Magnificent Lorenzo de’ Medici, conversing one day with Graffione, who was a singularly eccentric person, said to him, “I will have all the angles of the inside of the cupola decorated with Mosaics and stucco-work.” To which Graffione replied,
- ↑ It appears from the MS. annotations of Giovanni Baldovinetti already referred to, that this portrait is not the likeness of Alesso, but that of Tommaso, the father of Domenico Ghirlandajo.
- ↑ This would bring the date of his death down to the year 1502, but the register of deaths for the year 1499 has that of Alesso under date of the 29th of August in that year.
- ↑ The Florentine Edition of Vasari, published in 1832-38, speaks of this work as in a very grievous state; that of 1846-49, not yet completed, but still in progress, informs us, that the fresco of Graffione “has been recently restored by the Professor Antonio Marini.”
