imitation of his teacher, no long time had elapsed before Jacopo was perceived to have made astonishing progress, both in design and colouring, insomuch that the facility he had acquired might have made the observer suppose he had already passed many years in the practice of the art.
It happened about this time that Andrea del Sarto had finished a picture of the Annunciation, for the church of that name, which belongs to the monks of San Gallo, which church has since been destroyed,[1] as we have related in the life of Andrea; and the predella of this work he gave to Jacopo, whom he directed to paint it in oil. This Jacopo did accordingly, depicting thereon a figure of Our Saviour Christ lying dead, with two little Angels standing beside him weeping, and holding torches in their hands; at each end of this predella, moreover, he painted the figure of a Prophet standing within a circular framework; and these are so ably executed, that they appear not to have been done by a youth but by an experienced master. It is however possible that II Rosso likewise worked at this predella, as II Bronzino assures us he remembers to have been told him by Jacopo da Puntormo himself. But Andrea was not only assisted by Jacopo as regarded the predella, that disciple took part in many other works also, carrying forward and helping to finish many of the panel pictures and paintings of other kinds, numbers of which Andrea continually had on hand.
About this time it was that the Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici was raised to the Supreme Pontificate, and took the name of Leo X, when escutcheons of the arms of that Pontiff were made in vast numbers by his friends and by the adherents of his House in Florence, some in marble or stone,, and others painted, either on cloth or in fresco. The Servite monks, among others, were desirous of having some sign made, whereby they also might give evidence of their service and devotion towards that House and Pontiff, wherefore they caused the arms of Pope Leo to be executed in stone; and this they placed in the centre of the arch over the principal, portico of their church, on that side namely which is turned
- ↑ This was done in the year 1529, when Florence was menaced with a siege by the Prince of Orange, and the Church was demolished, lest it should afford shelter to his troops. Admirable instance of how things were managed in the “good old times!’’
