ose curtains, that which faces the choir, they painted the
Annunciation of the Virgin; and on the other, which is in front, a
Deposition of Christ from the Cross, like that of the panel-picture
which was there, painted by Filippo and Pietro Perugino.

The men of that company in Florence which is called the Company of the
Scalzo used to assemble at the head of the Via Larga, above the houses
of the Magnificent Ottaviano de' Medici, and opposite to the garden of
S. Marco, in a building dedicated to S. John the Baptist, which had been
built in those days by a number of Florentine craftsmen, who had made
there, among other things, an entrance-court of masonry with a loggia
which rested on some columns of no great size. And some of them,
perceiving that Andrea was on the way to becoming known as an excellent
painter, and being richer in spirit than in pocket, determined that he
should paint round that cloister twelve pictures in chiaroscuro--that is
to say, in fresco with terretta--containing twelve scenes from the life
of S. John the Baptist. Whereupon, setting his hand to this, he painted
in the first the scene of S. John baptizing Christ, with much diligence
and great excellence of manner, whereby he gained credit, honour, and
fame to such an extent, that many persons turned to him with commissions
for works, as to one whom they thought to be destined in time to reach
that honourable goal which was foreshadowed by his extraordinary
beginnings in his profession.

Among other works that he made in that first manner, he painted a
picture which is now in the house of Filippo Spini, held in great
veneration in memory of so able a craftsman. And not long after this he
was commissioned to paint for a chapel in S. Gallo, the Church of the
Eremite Observantines of the Order of S. Augustine, without the Porta a
S. Gallo, a panel-picture of Christ appearing in the garden to Mary
Magdalene in the form of a gardener; which work, what with the colouring
and a certain quality of softness and harmony, is sweetness itself, and
so well executed, that it led to his painting two others not long
afterwards for the same church, as will be related below. This panel is
now in S. Jacopo tra Fossi, on the Canto degli Alberti, together with
the two others.

After these works, Andrea and Franciabigio, leaving the Piazza del
Grano, took new rooms in the Sapienza, near the Convent of the Nunziata;
whence it came about that Andrea and Jacopo Sansovin