Returning home he fell once more under the strong will of his wife, but with his principles weakened by the effect of a luxury and prosperity which has always a greater deteriorating effect on a nature such as his than on a finer mind. Bringing grand ideas from the palaces of the French nobles, he not only fell in with Lucrezia's plans for beautifying the new house, but even surpassed her wildest schemes. The staircase was embellished with rich oaken balustrades, the rooms were all frescoed. Cupids hide in the Raphaelesque scrolls on the arches, classic divinities rest on the ceilings, but in the dining room the homely nature of the man who did his own marketing, creeps out. It is a charming room, the windows opening on a garden courtyard, where a vine trellis leads round to what used to be the side door of his studio which has its entrance in another street. The roof is vaulted and covered with exquisite decorative frescoes, but in the lunettes of the two largest arches are the domestic scenes of cooking and laying the cloth, spoken of at page 90. Two or three of the up stairs rooms are very fine, especially the one in which Andrea is said to have died. [Footnote: This description is due to the kindness of the present resident in the house, who kindly showed it to the writer, pointing out all the unrestored portions.] It is probable the furniture matched the style of the rooms, and that much money was spent on carved chairs and _cassoni_. Certain it is that the King of France's commissions were unfulfilled, and his money misappropriated. Andrea would have returned to France, but his wife, who had an Italian woman's dread of leaving her own country, put every obstacle in his way, adding entreaties to tears which the uxorious Andrea could not resist. As usual he tried to please her, and she only cared to please herself. He fell greatly in the estimation of the King, who was justly angry; albeit the artist salved his own too easy conscience by sending a few of his own paintings to Francis I., one of which, the _Sacrifice of Abraham_, still remains in France, and another a half length figure of _S. John the Baptist_. The place of this picture is much disputed; it is said to be at present in the Pitti Palace. Argenville speaks of it among the French pictures as if it had returned subsequently to Florence, while Vasari asserts that it never went there, but was sold to Ottaviano de' Medici. [Footnote: _Life of Andrea, del Sarto_, vol. in. p. 212.] As Andrea painted no less than five pictures of this subject, of which Argenville mentions that there were two in France, one of which was sold to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, it is probable that the Pitti one is not that painted for Francis I. CHAPTER VI. ANDREA AND OTTAVIANO DE' MEDICI. A.D. 1521-1523.