s of Signor Giovanni de'
Medici, in imitation of bronze; all which were the best pictures that
were executed in those festive preparations. Wherefore the Duke, having
recognized the ability of this man, caused him to set his hand to
adorning a chapel of no great size in the Ducal Palace for the said Lady
Duchess, a woman of true worth, if ever any woman was, and for her
infinite merits worthy of eternal praise. In that chapel Bronzino made
on the vault some compartments with very beautiful children and four
figures, each of which has the feet turned towards the walls--S.
Francis, S. Jerome, S. Michelagnolo, and S. John; all executed with the
greatest diligence and lovingness. And on the three walls, two of which
are broken by the door and the window, he painted three stories of
Moses, one on each wall. Where the door is, he painted the story of the
snakes or serpents raining down upon the people, with many beautiful
considerations in figures bitten by them, some of whom are dying, some
are dead, and others, gazing on the Brazen Serpent, are being healed. On
another wall, that of the window, is the Rain of Manna; and on the
unbroken wall the Passing of the Red Sea, and the Submersion of Pharaoh;
which scene has been printed in engraving at Antwerp. In a word, this
work, executed as it is in fresco, has no equal, and is painted with the
greatest possible diligence and study. In the altar-picture of this
chapel, painted in oils, which was placed over the altar, was Christ
taken down from the Cross, in the lap of His Mother; but it was removed
from there by Duke Cosimo for sending as a present, as a very rare work,
to Granvella, who was once the greatest man about the person of the
Emperor Charles V. In place of that altar-piece the same master has
painted another like it, which was set over the altar between two
pictures not less beautiful than the altar-piece, in which pictures are
the Angel Gabriel and the Virgin receiving from him the Annunciation;
but instead of these, when the first altar-picture was removed, there
were a S. John the Baptist and a S. Cosimo, which were placed in the
guardaroba when the Lady Duchess, having changed her mind, caused the
other two to be painted.

[Illustration: ELEANORA DE TOLEDO AND HER SON

(_After the painting by =Angelo Bronzino=. Florence: Uffizi, 172_)

_Alinari_]

The Lord Duke, having seen from these and other works the excellence of
this painter, and that it was his particul