likely to produce some great fruits. But, since he always had his mind
set more on giving himself a good time and every possible amusement,
living in a round of suppers and feastings with his friends, than on
studying and working, he was for ever forgetting rather than learning.
And that which was a thing to laugh at or to pity, I know not which, was
that he belonged to a company, or rather, gang, of friends who, under
the pretence of living like philosophers, lived like swine and
brute-beasts; they never washed their hands, or face, or head, or beard;
they did not sweep their houses, and never made their beds save only
once every two months; they laid their tables with the cartoons for
their pictures, and they drank only from the flask or the jug; and this
miserable existence of theirs, living, as the saying goes, from hand to
mouth, was held by them to be the finest life in the world. But, since
the outer man is wont to be a guide to the inner, and to reveal what our
minds are, I believe, as has been said before, that they were as filthy
and brutish in mind as their outward appearance suggested.

For the festival of S. Felice in Piazza--that is, the representation of
the Annunciation of the Madonna, of which there has been an account in
another place--which was held by the Company of the Orciuolo in the year
1525, Jacone made among the outer decorations, according to the custom
of those times, a most beautiful triumphal arch standing by itself,
large, double, and very high, with eight columns, pilasters, and
pediments; all of which he caused to be carried to completion by Piero
da Sesto, a well-practised master in woodwork. On this arch, then, were
painted nine scenes, part of which, the best, he executed himself, and
the rest Francesco Ubertini, Il Bacchiacca; and these scenes were all
from the Old Testament, and for the greater part from the life of Moses.
Having then been summoned by a Scopetine friar, his kinsman, to Cortona,
Jacone painted two altar-pieces in oils for the Church of the Madonna,
which is without the city. In one of these is Our Lady with S. Rocco, S.
Augustine, and other Saints, and in the other a God the Father who is
crowning Our Lady, with two Saints at the foot, and in the centre is S.
Francis, who is receiving the Stigmata; which two works were very
beautiful. Then, having returned to Florence, he decorated for Bongianni
Capponi a vaulted chamber in that city; and he executed certain others