Andrea degl’ Impiccati,[1] as Andrea dal Castagno had done, lie set about a report that the work was to be executed by one of his disciples, called Bernardo del Buda. But a large enclosure having been prepared, he glided within this shelter himself, secretly and by night, working at those figures with his own hand, and painting them in such sort, that they seemed to be there in life and reality, rather than in the mere colours of the painter. The soldiers thus exposed were depicted in the Piazza, on the front of the old Mercatanzia namely, near the Condotta, but they were covered over with whitewash many years since, that they might no longer be seen; the portraits of the citizens also, which Andrea painted entirely with his own hand on the palace of the Podesta, have in like manner been destroyed.[2]
In the last years of his life, Andrea lived in much familiarity with some of those who governed in the Brotherhood of San Sebastiano, which has its abode behind the monastery of the Servites; he consequently painted for that Brotherhood a figure of San Sebastiano in half-length, which is so beautiful that it might well have been supposed likely to prove the last stroke of a pencil that he was to make.[3] The siege of Florence was now at an end, and Andrea was in constant expectation of seeing matters take a more favourable turn, although he had but little hope of success for his attempt, as regarded his re-admission to the favour of the French King, seeing that Giovanni Battista Palla had even then been taken prisoner. But when Florence was filled by the soldiers of the camp, together with the stores of food that were then brought in, there came certain Lansquenets among the other corps of the soldiery, and some of these were infected with the plague; this caused no slight alarm in the
- ↑ Andrea of the Gibbeted or Hanged. See Life of Andrea dal Castagno, vol. ii., p. 104, note ‡.
- ↑ No trace of them is now to be seen, but certain studies for some of the figures are preserved in the collection of drawings in the Florentine Gallery.
- ↑ Baldinucci, as well as Bottari, affirms that this work was in the Pitti Palace, and they maintain that it was engraved as belonging to that collection, by C. Mogalli; but it cannot now be found there, nor is there any one at present remaining who can remember to have seen it there. A very beautiful copy, or perhaps the original itself, according to the opinions of many, was purchased by Mr. Sanford at Florence, in the year 1832.
