was then
reading in Bologna, caused these words to be placed at the foot:

OCTONIS MENSIBUS OPUS AB ARETINO GEORGIO PICTUM, NON TAM PRECIO
QUAM AMICORUM OBSEQUIS ET HONORIS VOTO, ANNO 1539 PHILIPPUS
SERRALIUS PON. CURAVIT.

At this same time I executed two little altar-pictures, of the Dead
Christ and of the Resurrection, which were placed by the Abbot Don
Miniato Pitti in the Church of S. Maria di Barbiano, without San
Gimignano in Valdelsa. Which works finished, I returned straightway to
Florence, for the reason that Treviso, Maestro Biagio, and other
Bolognese painters, thinking that I was seeking to establish myself in
Bologna and to take their works and commissions out of their hands, kept
molesting me unceasingly; but they did more harm to themselves than to
me, and their envious ways moved me to laughter. In Florence, then, I
copied for M. Ottaviano a large portrait of Cardinal Ippolito down to
the knees, and other pictures, with which I kept myself occupied until
the insupportable heat of summer. Which having come, I returned to the
quiet and freshness of Camaldoli, in order to execute the
above-mentioned altar-piece of the high-altar. In that work I painted a
Christ taken down from the Cross, with the greatest study and labour
that were within my power; and since, in the course of the work and of
time, it seemed necessary to me to improve certain things, and I was not
satisfied with the first sketch, I gave it another priming and repainted
it all anew, as it is now to be seen, and then, attracted by the
solitude and staying in that same place, I executed there a picture for
the same Messer Ottaviano, in which I painted a young S. John, nude,
among some rocks and crags that I copied from Nature among those
mountains. And I had scarcely finished these works when there arrived in
Camaldoli Messer Bindo Altoviti, who wished to arrange a transportation
of great fir-trees to Rome by way of the Tiber, for the fabric of S.
Pietro, from the Cella di S. Alberigo, a place belonging to those
fathers; and he, seeing all the works executed by me in that place, and
by my good fortune liking them, resolved, before he departed thence,
that I should paint an alter-picture for his Church of S. Apostolo in
Florence. Wherefore, having finished that of Camaldoli, with the facade
of the chapel in fresco (wherein I made the experiment of combining work
in oil-colours with the other, and succeeded passing well), I made my
way