e reflected how, in a work of such magnitude, he had a
fair field to show his ability and worth. Some say that Jacopo,
finding that the work had been allotted to him notwithstanding that
Francesco Salviati, a painter of great fame, was in Florence and had
brought to a happy conclusion the painting of that hall in the Palace
which was once the audience-chamber of the Signoria, must needs
declare that he would show the world how to draw and paint, and how to
work in fresco, and, besides this, that the other painters were but
ordinary hacks, with other words equally insolent and overbearing. But
I myself always knew Jacopo as a modest person, who spoke of everyone
honourably and in a manner proper to an orderly and virtuous
craftsman, such as he was, and I believe that these words were
imputed to him falsely, and that he never let slip from his mouth any
such boastings, which are for the most part the marks of vain men who
presume too much upon their merits, in which manner of men there is no
place for virtue or good breeding. And, although I might have kept
silent about these matters, I have not chosen to do so, because to
proceed as I have done appears to me the office of a faithful and
veracious historian; it is enough that, although these rumours went
around, and particularly among our craftsmen, nevertheless I have a
firm belief that they were the words of malicious persons, Jacopo
having always been in the experience of everyone modest and
well-behaved in his every action.

Having then closed up that chapel with walls, screens of planks, and
curtains, and having given himself over to complete solitude, he kept
it for a period of eleven years so well sealed up, that excepting
himself not a living soul entered it, neither friend nor any other. It
is true, indeed, that certain lads who were drawing in the sacristy of
Michelagnolo, as young men will do, climbed by its spiral staircase on
to the roof of the church, and, removing some tiles and the plank of
one of the gilded rosettes that are there, saw everything. Of which
having heard, Jacopo took it very ill, but took no further notice
beyond closing up everything with greater care; although some say that
he persecuted those young men sorely, and sought to make them regret
it.

Imagining, then, that in this work he would surpass all other
painters, and perchance, so it was said, even Michelagnolo, he painted
in the upper part, in a number of scenes, the Creation of Ad