it was the gift of God. That altar-picture
finished, those fathers resolved that I should paint in fresco on the
facade the stories that were to be there, whereupon I painted over the
door a picture of the hermitage, with S. Romualdo and a Doge of Venice
who was a saintly man on one side, and on the other a vision which the
above-named Saint had in that place where he afterwards made his
hermitage; with some fantasies, grotesques, and other things that are to
be seen there. Which done, they ordained that I should return in the
summer of the following year to execute the picture of the high-altar.

[Footnote 4: See note on p. 57, Vol. I.]

Meanwhile the above-named Don Miniato Pitti, who was then Visitor to the
Congregation of Monte Oliveto, having seen the altar-picture of Monte
Sansovino and the works of Camaldoli, and finding in Bologna the
Florentine Don Filippo Serragli, Abbot of S. Michele in Bosco, said to
him that, since the refectory of that honoured monastery was to be
painted, it appeared to him that the work should be allotted to me and
not to another. Being therefore summoned to go to Bologna, I undertook
to do it, although it was a great and important work; but first I
desired to see all the most famous works in painting that were in that
city, both by Bolognese and by others. The work of the head-wall of that
refectory was divided into three pictures; in one was to be when Abraham
prepared food for the Angels in the Valley of Mamre, in the second
Christ in the house of Mary Magdalene and Martha, speaking with Martha,
and saying to her that Mary had chosen the better part, and in the third
was to be S. Gregory at table with twelve poor men, among whom he
recognized one as Christ. Then, setting my hand to the work, I depicted
in the last S. Gregory at table in a convent, served by White Friars of
that Order, that I might be able to include those fathers therein,
according to their wish. Besides that, I made in the figure of that
saintly Pontiff the likeness of Pope Clement VII, and about him, among
many Lords, Ambassadors, Princes, and other personages who stand there
to see him eat, I portrayed Duke Alessandro de' Medici, in memory of the
benefits and favours that I had received from him, and of his having
been what he was, and with him many of my friends. And among those who
are serving the poor men at table, I portrayed some friars of that
convent with whom I was intimate, such as the strangers'