by contemporary records, says that
he assisted in the decorations of the chapel of S. Egidio in Santa Maria
Nuova, carried out during the years 1441-1451 by Domenico Veneziano and in
conjunction with Andrea del Castagno. That he was commissioned to complete
the series at a later date (1460) is certain. In 1462 Alessio was employed
to paint the great fresco of the Annunciation in the cloister of the
Annunziata, which still exists in ruined condition. The remains as we see
them give evidence of the artist's power both of imitating natural detail
with minute fidelity and of spacing his figures in a landscape with a large
sense of air and distance; and they amply verify two separate statements of
Vasari concerning him: that "he delighted in drawing landscapes from nature
exactly as they are, whence we see in his paintings rivers, bridges, rocks,
plants, fruits, roads, fields, cities, exercise-grounds, and an infinity of
other such things," and that he was an inveterate experimentalist in
technical matters. His favourite method in wall-painting was to lay in his
compositions in fresco and finish them _a secco_ with a mixture of yolk of
egg and liquid varnish. This, says Vasari, was with the view of protecting
the painting from damp; but in course of time the parts executed with this
vehicle scaled away, so that the great secret he hoped to have discovered
turned out a failure. In 1463 he furnished a cartoon of the Nativity, which
was executed in tarsia by Giuliano de Maiano in the sacristy of the
cathedral and still exists. From 1466 date the groups of four Evangelists
and four Fathers of the Church in fresco, together with the Annunciation on
an oblong panel, which still decorate the Portuguese chapel in the church
of S. Miniato, and are given in error by Vasari to Pietro Pollaiuolo. A
fresco of the risen Christ between angels inside a Holy Sepulchre in the
chapel of the Rucellai family, also still existing, belongs to 1467. In
1471 Alessio undertook important works for the church of Sta Trinita on the
commission of Bongianni Gianfigliazzi. First, to paint an altar-piece of
the [v.03 p.0244] Virgin and Child with six saints; this was finished in
1472 and is now in the Academy at Florence: next, a series of frescoes from
the Old Testament which was to be completed according to contract within
five years, but actually remained on hand for fully sixteen. In 1497 the
finished series, which contained many portraits of leading Floren