successful in paintings from the life, which he executed with the utmost care and fidelity, caused his own portrait to be taken, with that of the Signora Duchess, his consort, in another picture; and the likeness of Don Francesco, their son, and Prince of Florence, in a third. The Duke, then young, was represented in white armour, and with one hand on his helmet. No long time after the completion of the above, Bronzino, having pleased the Signora Duchess, was commissioned to take her portrait once again, but in a different manner from the first, and with her son, the Signor Don Giovanni, beside her.[1] Our artist also portrayed La Bia, the natural daughter of Duke Cosimo, as he subsequently did all the other children of the Duke; some for the first and others for the second time; the Signora Donna Maria, that is to say, the Prince Don Francesco, Don Garzia, and Don Ernando, in various pictures, which are all in the Guardaroba of his Excellency, with the portrait of Don Francesco di Toledo; that of the Signora, mother of his Excellency; and of Ercole, second Duke of Ferrara, as well as many others.
For two years following, Bronzino likewise made the scenic decorations for dramatic representations given in the Palace at the Carnival, and which were considered very beautiful; he also painted a picture which was sent into France to the King Francesco. This represented a nude figure of Venus embraced by her son Cupid; the Pleasures, Loves, and Sports are on one side; and on the other. Fraud, Jealousy, and Passions of similar character.
The Signor Duke having caused Pontormo to commence the Cartoons for cloth of arras in silk and gold, to be woven for the Hall of the Council of the Dugento, and having had two Stories of the Hebrew Joseph executed by Pontormo, with one by Salviati, he ordered that Bronzino should prepare the remainder. Thereupon our artist designed fourteen pieces, all of that excellence and perfection which those who have seen them will remember. But these works giving him too much labour, and requiring too great an expenditure of time, he caused the greater part of the Cartoons to be executed after his own designs, by Raffaello dal Colle, of Borgo a San Sepolcro, who acquitted himself to admiration therein.
Now Giovanni Zanchini had caused a rich chapel to be constructed in the Church at Santa Croce at Florence, and
- ↑ This portrait of the Duchess and her son is also in the Uffizj.
