is to say, to a company or rather a horde of young men, who, under the pretext of living like philosophers, demeaned themselves rather like so many swine or other brute-beasts, never did they wash either hands or face, or head or beard; they did not sweep their houses, they never made their beds save twice in each month only, they used the cartoons of their pictures for their tables, and drank only from the bottle or the pitcher; this pitiable coarseness and contemptible folly all the while appearing to them to be the finest life in the world. But it is certain that external habitudes are not unfrequently the index of what may be found within, and indicate the mental characteristics of the man: I am well persuaded therefore, as I have remarked at other times, that these men were but little less impure and brutal in their minds and lives than they were in their outward appearance.
On the Festival of San Felice in Piazza (the Annunciation of Our Lady namely, of which mention has been made in another place), which in the year 1525 was exhibited by the Company of the Orciuolo,[1]Jacone was commissioned to execute a handsome Triumphal Arch, large, double, and standing entirely apart from all other buildings; it had eight columns, with pilasters and a pediment, the whole fabric being of great height: this our artist caused to be erected by Piero da Sesto, a most able and experienced master in wood-work, who acquitted himself of his part to perfection. Jacone then painted nine stories, partly with his own hand, and these were the best, but partly with the help of Francesco Ubertini Bacchiacca, the subjects of all being taken from the Old Testament, and principally from the life and acts of Moses.
Now Jacone had a kinsman who was a Scopetine Monk, and by the intervention of this Frate he was invited to Cortona, where he painted two pictures in oil for the church of the Madonna which is outside the city; in one of these is Our Lady, with San Bocco, San Sebastiano, and many other saints, and in the other is a figure of the Almighty Father who is crowning the Virgin; two Saints are represented as standing at the foot of the picture, and in the centre is San Francesco receiving the Stigmata; both of these works
- ↑ Orciuolo, a little jug. The trivial and even absurd names adopted by many of the Companies at this period will be familiar to most of our readers.
