re into the Convent of S.
Marco, and finally into S. Jacopo tra Fossi on the Canto degli
Alberti, where it stands at the present day on the high-altar. In this
picture is the Dead Christ, with the Magdalene, who is embracing His
feet, and S. John the Evangelist, who is holding His head and
supporting it on one knee. There, likewise, are S. Peter, who is
weeping, and S. Paul, who, stretching out his arms, is contemplating
his Dead Master; and, to tell the truth, Giuliano executed this
picture with so much lovingness and so much consideration and
judgment, that he will be always very highly extolled for it, even as
he was at that time, and that rightly. And after this he finished for
Cristofano Rinieri a picture with the Rape of Dina that had been
likewise left incomplete by the same Fra Bartolommeo; and he painted
another picture like it, which was sent to France.

Not long afterwards, having been drawn to Bologna by certain friends,
he executed some portraits from life, and, for a chapel in the new
choir of S. Francesco, an altar-piece in oils containing Our Lady and
two Saints, which was held at that time in Bologna, from there not
being many masters there, to be a good work and worthy of praise.
Then, having returned to Florence, he painted for I know not what
person five pictures of the life of Our Lady, which are now in the
house of Maestro Andrea Pasquali, physician to his Excellency and a
man of great distinction.

Messer Palla Rucellai having commissioned him to execute an
altar-piece that was to be placed on his altar in S. Maria Novella,
Giuliano began to paint in it the Martyrdom of S. Catharine the
Virgin. Mountains in labour! He had it in hand for twelve years, but
never carried it to completion after all that time, because he had no
invention and knew not how to paint the many various things that had a
part in that martyrdom; and, although he was always racking his brain
as to how those wheels should be made, and how he should paint the
lightning and the fire that consumed them, constantly changing one
day what he had done the day before, in all that time he was never
able to finish it. It is true that in the meantime he executed many
works, and among others, for Messer Francesco Guicciardini--who had
returned from Bologna and was then living in his villa at Montici,
writing his history--a portrait of him, which was a passing good
likeness and pleased him much. He took the portrait, likewise, of
Signora