for the same man in his villa at Montici. And finally, when Jacopo da
Pontormo painted for Duke Alessandro, in his villa at Careggi, that
loggia of which there has been an account in his Life, Jacone helped to
execute the greater part of the ornaments, such as grotesques, and other
things. After this he occupied himself with certain insignificant works,
of which there is no need to make mention.

[Illustration: THE BAPTISM IN JORDAN

(_After the painting by =Bacchiacca=. Berlin: Kaiser Friedrich Museum,
No. 267_)

_Hanfstaengl_]

The sum of the matter is that Jacone spent the best part of his life in
jesting, in going off into cogitations, and in speaking evil of all and
sundry. For in those days the art of design in Florence had fallen into
the hands of a company of persons who paid more attention to playing
jokes and to enjoyment than to working, and whose occupation was to
assemble in shops and other places, and there to spend their time in
criticizing maliciously, in their own jargon, the works of others who
were persons of excellence and lived decently and like men of honour.
The heads of this company were Jacone, the goldsmith Piloto, and the
wood-carver Tasso; but the worst of them all was Jacone, for the reason
that, among his other fine qualities, his every word was always a foul
slander against somebody. Wherefore it was no marvel that from such a
company there should have sprung in time, as will be related, many evil
happenings, or that Piloto, on account of his slanderous tongue, was
killed by a young man. And since their habits and proceedings were
displeasing to honest men, they were generally to be found--I do not
say all of them, but some at least--like wool-carders and other fellows
of that kidney, playing at chuck-stones at the foot of a wall, or making
merry in a tavern.

One day that Giorgio Vasari was returning from Monte Oliveto, a place
without Florence, after a visit to the reverend and most cultured Don
Miniato Pitti, who was then Abbot of that monastery, he found Jacone,
with a great part of his crew, at the Canto de' Medici; and Jacone
thought to attempt, as I heard afterwards, with some of his idle talk,
speaking half in jest and half in earnest, to hit on some phrase
insulting to Giorgio. And so, when Vasari rode into their midst on his
horse, Jacone said to him: "Well, Giorgio, how goes it with you?"
"Finely, my Jacone," answered Giorgio. "Once I was poor like all of you,
and now I fi