es and courts; I recognized, I say, my error in having in the past
placed my hopes in men and in the follies and intrigues of this world.
That altar-picture finished, then, they allotted to me straightway the
rest of the tramezzo[3] of the church--namely, the scenes and other
things in fresco-work to be painted there both high and low, which I was
to execute during the following summer, for the reason that in the
winter it would be scarcely possible to work in fresco at that altitude,
among those mountains.

[Footnote 2: See note on p. 57, Vol. I.]

[Footnote 3: See note on p. 57, Vol. I.]

Meanwhile I returned to Arezzo and finished the altar-picture for S.
Rocco, painting in it Our Lady, six Saints, and a God the Father with
some thunderbolts in the hand, representing the pestilence, which He is
in the act of hurling down, but S. Rocco and other Saints make
intercession for the people. And in the facade are many figures in
fresco, which, like the altar-picture, are no better than they should
be. Then Fra Bartolommeo Gratiani, a friar of S. Agostino in Monte
Sansovino, sent to invite me to Val di Caprese, and commissioned me to
execute a great altar-piece in oils for the high-altar of the Church of
S. Agostino in that same Monte Sansovino. And after we had come to an
agreement, I made my way to Florence to see M. Ottaviano, where, staying
several days, I had much ado to prevent myself from re-entering the
service of the Court, as I was minded not to do. However, by advancing
good reasons I won the battle, and I resolved that by hook or by crook,
before doing anything else, I would go to Rome. But in that I did not
succeed until I had made for that same Messer Ottaviano a copy of the
picture in which formerly Raffaello da Urbino had portrayed Pope Leo,
Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, and Cardinal de' Rossi, for the Duke was
claiming the original, which was then in the possession of Messer
Ottaviano; and the copy that I made is now in the house of the heirs of
that lord, who on my departure for Rome wrote me a letter of exchange
for five hundred crowns on Giovan Battista Puccini, which he was to pay
me on demand, and said to me: "Use this money to enable you to attend to
your studies, and afterwards, when you find it convenient, you can
return it to me either in work or in cash, just as you please." Arriving
in Rome, then, in February of the year 1538, I stayed there until the
end of June, giving my atten