am and
Eve, the Eating of the Forbidden Fruit, their Expulsion from Paradise,
the Tilling of the Earth, the Sacrifice of Abel, the Death of Cain,
the Blessing of the Seed of Noah, and the same Noah designing the plan
and the measurements of the Ark. Next, on one of the lower walls, each
of which is fifteen braccia in each direction, he painted the
inundation of the Deluge, in which is a mass of dead and drowned
bodies, and Noah speaking with God. On the other wall is painted the
Universal Resurrection of the Dead, which has to take place on the
last and final day; with such variety and confusion, that the real
resurrection will perhaps not be more confused, or more full of
movement, in a manner of speaking, than Pontormo painted it. Opposite
to the altar and between the windows--that is, on the central
wall--there is on either side a row of nude figures, who, clinging to
each other's bodies with hands and legs, form a ladder wherewith to
ascend to Paradise, rising from the earth, where there are many dead
in company with them, and at the end, on either side, are two dead
bodies clothed with the exception of the legs and also the arms, with
which they are holding two lighted torches. At the top, in the centre
of the wall, above the windows, he painted in the middle Christ on
high in His Majesty, who, surrounded by many Angels all nude, is
raising those dead in order to judge them.

But I have never been able to understand the significance of this
scene, although I know that Jacopo had wit enough for himself, and
also associated with learned and lettered persons; I mean, what he
could have intended to signify in that part where there is Christ on
high, raising the dead, and below His feet is God the Father, who is
creating Adam and Eve. Besides this, in one of the corners, where are
the four Evangelists, nude, with books in their hands, it does not
seem to me that in a single place did he give a thought to any order
of composition, or measurement, or time, or variety in the heads, or
diversity in the flesh-colours, or, in a word, to any rule,
proportion, or law of perspective; for the whole work is full of nude
figures with an order, design, invention, composition, colouring, and
painting contrived after his own fashion, and with such melancholy and
so little satisfaction for him who beholds the work, that I am
determined, since I myself do not understand it, although I am a
painter, to leave all who may see it to form t