o, to a
place under the vaulting of the same Hospital at the corner of the Via
della Pergola, and finally had been removed and driven from that place
also by Don Isidoro Montaguti, the Director of the Hospital, so that it
was almost entirely dispersed, and no longer assembled. Now, after Fra
Giovanni Agnolo, Maestro Zaccheria, and Giorgio had thus discoursed at
some length of the condition of that Company, and the Frate had spoken
of it with Bronzino, Francesco da San Gallo, Ammanati, Vincenzio de'
Rossi, Michele di Ridolfo, and many other sculptors and painters of the
first rank, and had declared his mind to them, when the morning of the
most Holy Trinity came, all the most noble and excellent craftsmen of
the arts of design, to the number of forty-eight, were assembled in the
above-named chapter-house, where a most beautiful festival had been
prepared, and where the tomb was already finished, and the altar so far
advanced that there were wanting only some figures of marble that were
going into it. There, after a most solemn Mass had been said, a
beautiful oration was made by one of those fathers in praise of Fra
Giovanni Agnolo, and of the magnificent liberality that he was showing
to the Company by presenting to them that chapter-house, that tomb, and
that chapel, in order to take possession of which, he said in
conclusion, it had been already arranged that the body of Pontormo,
which had been placed in a vault in the first little cloister of the
Nunziata, should be laid in the new tomb before any other. When,
therefore, the Mass and the oration were finished, they all went into
the church, where there were on a bier the remains of that Pontormo; and
then, having placed the bier on the shoulders of the younger men, with a
taper for each and also some torches, they passed around the Piazza and
carried it into the chapter-house, which, previously draped with cloth
of gold, they found all black and covered with painted corpses and other
suchlike things; and thus was Pontormo laid in the new tomb.

The Company then dispersing, the first meeting was ordained for the next
Sunday, when, besides settling the constitution of the Company, they
were to make a selection of the best and create an Academy, with the
assistance of which those without knowledge might learn, and those with
knowledge, spurred by honourable and praiseworthy emulation, might
proceed to make greater proficience. Giorgio, meanwhile, had spoken of
these mat