but not having the patience required for joining those innumerable little morsels together, he never attempted anything more in that manner.
For the Company of the Woolcombers, Ridolfo painted a picture in their little Church at the upper end of the Campaccio, the Assumption of Our Lady namely, with a choir of angels and the Apostles standing around her tomb; but it happened unfortunately that in the year of the siege, the place wherein this work was executed being filled with young birches for making fascines, the humidity thus occasioned caused the intonaco to fall ofiT, and the picture was totally destroyed. Ridolfo was, however, commissioned to replace it, and then depicted his own portrait therein.
At the Deanery of Griogoli, and in a tabernacle, which looks towards the high road, Ghirlandajo painted a figure of the Madonna with two Angels; and in another tabernacle, which stands opposite to the mill of the Eremite Fathers of Camaldoli, that last being situate on the Ema, and beyond the Certosa, he executed several figures in fresco. But finding that he was now sufficiently employed, and in the receipt of a very good income, Ridolfo would no longer rack his brains for the sake of attaining to what he might have become in the Art of Painting, but rather began to think of living like a gentleman and taking matters easily.
When Pope Leo visited Florence, Ridolfo did nevertheless
the same, presented it to those fathers as his own work. The truth of this
assertion is made manifest by the following extract from a book of Records
still in the Convent of the Most Holy Annunciation, and wherein we find
written as beneath:—
“1509, The Nunziata, on the outside of our church and beneath the
Portico, was completed by Davitte di Tommaso, at the cost of the Convent.”
And in another book we find, “The Nunziata in mosaic over the principal door of our Convent was finished on the 25th Jan. 1509. It was
made by Davit di Tommaso, our painter of mosaic, and some difference
respecting the price having arisen between him and the Monks, the AVardens
of the Monastery commanded, in the presence of the parties, that a person
well acquainted with*such matters, should be chosen by each side to be
arbiters in that question, and that what they should judge to be just should
be accepted in silence and with content.
“These persons therefore having examined the work, and found the
figures to be good and well done, adjudged and decreed that the said
Monks should pay to the said Davit seventy-eight crowns, that is 546 lire;
which sum was given to him.”
