y panels, which
have been well preserved in that desert place, where no painting could
have remained fresh for even a few years. The same Andrea wrought all
the figures in glazed terra-cotta which are in the Loggia of the
Hospital of S. Paolo in Florence, and which are passing good; and
likewise the boys, both swathed and nude, that are in the medallions
between one arch and another in the Loggia of the Hospital of the
Innocenti, which are all truly admirable and prove the great talent and
art of Andrea; not to mention many, nay, innumerable other works that he
made in the course of his life, which lasted eighty-four years. Andrea
died in the year 1528, and I, while still a boy, talked with him and
heard him say--nay, boast--that he had taken part in bearing Donato to
the tomb; and I remember that the good old man showed no little pride as
he spoke of this.

[Illustration: ALTAR-PIECE

(_After_ Andrea della Robbia. _Arezzo: S. Maria in Grado_)

_Alinari_]

But to return to Luca; he was buried, with the rest of his family, in
their ancestral tomb in S. Piero Maggiore, and in the same tomb there
was afterwards buried Andrea, who left two sons, friars in S. Marco,
where they received the habit from the Reverend Fra Girolamo Savonarola,
to whom that Della Robbia family was ever devoted, portraying him in
that manner which is still seen to-day in the medals. The same man,
besides the said two friars, had three other sons: Giovanni, who devoted
himself to art and had three sons, Marco, Lucantonio, and Simone, who
died of plague in the year 1527, having given great promise; and Luca
and Girolamo, who devoted themselves to sculpture. Of these two, Luca
was very diligent in glazed works, and he made with his own hand,
besides many other things, the pavements of the Papal Loggie which Pope
Leo X caused to be made in Rome under the direction of Raffaello da
Urbino, and also those of many apartments, wherein he put the insignia
of that Pontiff. Girolamo, who was the youngest of all, devoted himself
to working in marble, in clay, and in bronze, and had already
become an able man, by reason of competing with Jacopo Sansovino, Baccio
Bandinelli, and other masters of his time, when he was brought by
certain Florentine merchants to France, where he made many works for
King Francis at Madri, a place not far distant from Paris, and in
particular a palace with many figures and other ornaments, with a kind
of stone like our Volterra gy