Corsini, who is portrayed there from nature on the sarcophagus; and above that he made a similar one in memory of Maestro Luigi Marsili, a very famous theologian, who went as ambassador, with Messer Luigi Guicciardini and Messer Guccio di Gino, most honourable cavaliers, to the Duke of Anjou. [Illustration: LORENZO DI BICCI: MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH A DONOR (_Empoli: Gallery. Panel_)] Lorenzo was then summoned to Arezzo by Don Laurentino, Abbot of S. Bernardo, a monastery of the Order of Monte Oliveto, in the principal chapel of which he painted in fresco, for Messer Carlo Marsuppini, stories of the life of S. Bernard. But while planning to paint the life of S. Benedict in the cloister of the convent (I mean, after having painted for the elder Francesco de' Bacci the principal chapel of the Church of S. Francesco, where he wrought by himself the vaulting and half of the arch) he fell sick of a pleurisy; wherefore, having himself carried to Florence, he left directions that Marco da Montepulciano, his disciple, should paint the scenes of the life of S. Benedict in the said cloister, from the design that he had made and left with Don Laurentino; and this Marco did as best he knew, delivering the whole work finished in chiaroscuro on April 24, in the year 1448, as it may be seen written by his hand in verses and words that are no less rude than the pictures. Having returned to his country and being restored to health, Lorenzo painted, on the same wall of the Convent of S. Croce whereon he had made the S. Christopher, the Assumption into Heaven of Our Lady, surrounded by a choir of angels, and below her a S. Thomas, who is receiving the Girdle. In the execution of this work, being indisposed, Lorenzo caused Donatello, then a youth, to help him; wherefore, with assistance so able, it was finished in the year 1450, in such wise that I believe that it is the best work, both in design and in colouring, that was ever made by Lorenzo, who, no long time after, being old and worn out, died at the age of about sixty, leaving two sons who applied themselves to painting; one of whom, named Bicci, gave him assistance in making many works, while the other, who was called Neri, portrayed his father and himself in the Chapel of the Lenzi in Ognissanti, in two medallions with letters round them, which give the name of both one and the other. In this chapel the same man, in painting some stories of the Madonna, strove to counterfeit many costumes of those times, both of men and of women; and he made the panel in distemper for the chapel. In like manner, he made some panels for the Abbey of S. Felice in Piazza at Florence, belonging to the Order of Camaldoli, and one for the high-altar of S. Michele in Arezzo, a church of the same Order. And at S. Maria delle Grazie without Arezzo, in the Church of S. Bernardino, he made a Madonna that has under her mantle the people of Arezzo, and on one side that S. Bernardino kneeling with a