treacheries by
means of the works themselves. During that time Bertoldo Corsini, who
was then proveditor-general to his Excellency, had reported to the Duke
that I had undertaken to do so many things that it would never be
possible for me to have them finished in time, particularly because I
had no men and the works were much in arrears. Whereupon the Duke sent
for me, and told me what he had heard; and I answered that my works were
well advanced, as his Excellency might see at his pleasure, and that the
end would do credit to the whole. Then I went away, and no long time
passed before he came secretly to where I was working, and, having seen
everything, recognized in part the envy and malice of those who were
pressing upon me without having any cause. The time having come when
everything was to be in order, I had finished my works to the last
detail and set them in their places, to the great satisfaction of the
Duke and of all the city; whereas those of some who had thought more of
my business than of their own, were set in place unfinished. When the
festivities were over, besides four hundred crowns that were paid to me
for my work, the Duke gave me three hundred that were taken away from
those who had not carried their works to completion by the appointed
time, according as had been arranged by agreement. And with those
earnings and donations I married one of my sisters, and shortly
afterwards settled another as a nun in the Murate at Arezzo, giving to
the convent besides the dowry, or rather, alms, an altar-picture of the
Annunciation by my hand, with a Tabernacle of the Sacrament accommodated
in that picture, which was placed within their choir, where they perform
their offices. Having then received from the Company of the Corpus
Domini, at Arezzo, the commission for the altar-piece of the high-altar
of S. Domenico, I painted in it Christ taken down from the Cross; and
shortly afterwards I began for the Company of S. Rocco the
altar-picture of their church, in Florence.

Now, while I was going on winning for myself honour, name, and wealth
under the protection of Duke Alessandro, that poor lord was cruelly
murdered, and there was snatched away from me all hope of that which I
was promising to myself from Fortune by means of his favour; wherefore,
having been robbed within a few years of Clement, Ippolito, and
Alessandro, I resolved at the advice of M. Ottaviano that I would never
again follow the fortune of Courts,