with the Infant Christ in her arms, Santa Maria Maddalena and Santa Caterina being on their knees before her, while San Giovanni, San Bastiano, and San Giuseppe stand upright and at each side of the Madonna. In all the figures of this work, Giovan-Antonio acquitted himself much more creditably than he had done in those of the Duomo.[1]
Having then nothing more to do at Pisa, he left that city, repairing to Luca, and in San Ponziano, a monastery belonging to the monks of Monte Oliveto, he received a commission from the abbot, who was a person of his acquaintance, to paint a picture of Our Lady on a staircase which forms the ascent to the dormitory. That work being completed, Giovan-Antonio returned to Siena, weary, old, and poor; but he did not long survive his arrival in that city: falling sick, and having no one to take care of him, nor any means wherewith to procure needful attendance, he took refuge in the great hospital, where he finished the course of his life in a very few weeks.[2]
While Giovan-Antonio was still young and in good repute, he had taken a wife in Siena, the young woman being the daughter of very honest and respectable parents. In the first year of his marriage he became the father of a little girl, but his wife, being weary of the follies committed by this man, at length refused to live with him. Withdrawing herself wholly from her husband therefore, she supported her child by her labour, and on the interest of her dowry,[3]
- ↑ Still in the Church of Santa Maria della Spina.
- ↑ Rumohr, Ital. Forsch., vol. ii. p. 385, remarks, and we fear with justice, that in this life—although in this only—Vasari has been unjust, and, in so much, unworthy of himself. But it is nevertheless clearly apparent that this injustice, if so it must be called, has not arisen from the mean motive of personal dislike, but rather from the author having suffered his disapproval of the painter’s ill-regulated life to prejudice his judgment and give, a perhaps, undue severity to his expressions. It is besides obvious that whenever Razzi did perform a truly conscientious and well-laboured work, our biographer, who had a particular respect for steady application, and greatly resented the desecration of art, was ever ready to acknowledge the merit of the artist, and give him due credit for it—of this the reader will have remarked numerous instances—more particularly towards the close of Razzi’s life. Vasari was, in short, offended by the negligent habits of Giovan-Antonio as an artist, and revolted by the evil repute which he had acquired as a man, and these things were without doubt suffered, in this one instance, to bias the judgment of the biographer.
- ↑ A sum of 490 florins.
