Albertinelli, Mariotto, 1474-1515; Bartolomeo, fra, 1472-1517; Sarto, Andrea del, 1486-1530
The _Visitation_ was placed in the church of the convent over a
presepio. [Footnote: In 1818 it was restored by Luigi Scotti and sold.]
Biadi gives the following document:--"Io Andrea d'Angiolo del Sarto, à
di 11 Ottobre 1528 ho ricevuto fiorini 80 d' oro di quei larghi [_i.e._
of two scudi each] della Tavola dell' Altar grande e di una mezza tavola
della Visitazione, da Donna Caterina della Casa Fiorentina, Badessa di
Luco." [Footnote: 2 Vol. in. p, 571, note.]
Andrea was paid ten florins for the _Head of the Saviour_, through his
assistant, Raffaello. This receipt would prove either that he went to
Luco later than 1524, or that he returned there to finish the works in
the year 1528.
On their return to Florence in the autumn Andrea painted a fine work for
his friend, Beccuccio da Gambassi, a glass-worker. It is an apotheosis
of the _Madonna_, with four figures beneath--S. John Baptist, Mary
Magdalen, S. Sebastian, and S. Rocco; not S. _Onofrio_, as Bottari has
named it. The predella, now lost, had portraits of the patron and his
wife. Crowe and Cavalcaselle speak of six saints in this picture, four
standing and two kneeling.
This description seems to point more certainly to the Sarzana _Madonna_,
which is now in the Hall of Apollo, in the Pitti Palace. That for
Beccuccio is described, with the four above-mentioned saints only, by
all the Italian authors.
The tabernacle, at the corner of the convent, outside the Porta Pinti,
Florence, was painted about this time. It is now quite destroyed by
age and weather; a good copy by Empoli, exists, however, in the western
corridor of the Uffizi. It is a charming _Holy Family, with the infant
S. John_,--a sweet laughing face. The Madonna is a portrait of Lucrezia.
In the siege when the convent of the Ingesuate--at the corner of which
it stood--was razed to the ground, this fresco, although loosened from
the wall, was spared by the soldiers, who had not courage to injure it.
The Grand Duke Cosimo was anxious to have it brought to Florence, and
often came with engineers and architects, but they never hazarded its
removal. [Footnote: Bocchi, _Bellezze di Firenze_, p. 482.]
The Duomo of Pisa has five saints painted by Andrea; they originally
formed one large picture in five compartments, and were painted for the
church of the now suppressed convent of S. Agnes; but in 1618 they
were divided into five pictures, and removed to the Duomo, where _S.
Catherine Martyr_, _S. Margaret_, _S. Peter_, and _S. John the Baptist_
hang on each side of the altar. _S. Agnes_, with her lamb by her
side, is placed on a pilaster towards the southern door. This and _S.
Margaret_ are especially graceful and expressive. There is much of
the feeling of Correggio, but with more natural grace and less
voluptuousness. The cutting and retouching had injured them greatly, but
in 1835 Antonio Garazalli took off the repainting and restored them more
delicately.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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