l
that he had drawn long before in Rome, which is very beautiful; and he
had it engraved on copper in Florence by Enea Vico of Parma, and the
Duke was content to retain him in Florence until that should be done,
with his usual salary and allowances. During that time, which was in the
year 1548, Giorgio Vasari being at Rimini in order to execute in fresco
and in oils the works of which we have spoken in another place,
Francesco wrote him a long letter, informing him in exact detail how his
affairs were passing in Florence, and, in particular, that he had made a
design for the principal chapel of S. Lorenzo, which was to be painted
by order of the Lord Duke, but that with regard to that work infinite
mischief had been done against him with his Excellency, and, among other
things, that he held it almost as certain that M. Pier Francesco, the
majordomo, had not presented his design, so that the work had been
allotted to Pontormo. And finally he said that for these reasons he was
returning to Rome, much dissatisfied with the men and the craftsmen of
his native country.

[Illustration: THE DEPOSITION

(_After the painting by =Francesco Salviati [Francesco de' Rossi]=.
Florence: S. Croce, the Refectory_)

_Alinari_]

Having thus returned to Rome, he bought a house near the Palace of
Cardinal Farnese, and, while he was occupying himself with executing
some works of no great importance, he received from that Cardinal,
through M. Annibale Caro and Don Giulio Clovio, the commission to
paint the Chapel of the Palace of S. Giorgio, in which he executed an
ornament of most beautiful compartments in stucco, and a vaulting in
fresco with stories of S. Laurence and many figures, full of grace, and
on a panel of stone, in oils, the Nativity of Christ, introducing into
that work, which was very beautiful, the portrait of the above-named
Cardinal. Then, having another work allotted to him in the
above-mentioned Company of the Misericordia (where Jacopo del Conte had
painted the Preaching and the Baptism of S. John, in which, although he
had not surpassed Francesco, he had acquitted himself very well, and
where some other works had been executed by the Venetian Battista Franco
and by Pirro Ligorio), Francesco painted, on that part that is exactly
beside his own picture of the Visitation, the Nativity of S. John,
which, although he executed it excellently well, was nevertheless not
equal to the first. At the head of that Company, likewi