o Brancacci to the Mugello to paint a panel for the Nuns of S.
Piero a Luco, of the Order of Camaldoli, taking with him his wife and a
stepdaughter, together with his wife's sister and an assistant. Living
quietly there, then, he set his hand to the work. And since those
venerable ladies showed more and more kindness and courtesy every day to
his wife, to himself, and to the whole party, he applied himself with
the greatest possible willingness to executing that panel, in which he
painted a Dead Christ mourned by Our Lady, S. John the Evangelist, and
the Magdalene, figures so lifelike, that they appear truly to have
spirit and breath. In S. John may be seen the loving tenderness of that
Apostle, with affection in the tears of the Magdalene, and bitter sorrow
in the face and whole attitude of the Madonna, whose aspect, as she
gazes on Christ, who seems to be truly a real corpse and in relief, is
so pitiful, that she fills with helpless awe and bewilderment the minds
of S. Peter and S. Paul, who are contemplating the Dead Saviour of the
World in the lap of His mother. From these marvellous conceptions it is
clear how much Andrea delighted in finish and perfection of art; and to
tell the truth, this panel has given more fame to that convent than all
the buildings and all the other costly works, however magnificent and
extraordinary, that have been executed there.

This picture finished, Andrea, seeing that the danger of the plague was
not yet past, stayed some weeks more in the same place, where he was so
well received and treated with such kindness. During that time, in order
not to be idle, he painted not only a Visitation of Our Lady to S.
Elizabeth, which is in the church, on the right hand above the Manger,
serving as a crown to a little ancient panel, but also, on a canvas of
no great size, a most beautiful head of Christ, somewhat similar to that
on the altar of the Nunziata, but not so finished. This head, which may
in truth be numbered among the better works that issued from the hands
of Andrea, is now in the Monastery of the Monks of the Angeli at
Florence, in the possession of that very reverend father, Don Antonio da
Pisa, who loves not only the men of excellence in our arts, but every
man of talent without exception. From this picture several copies have
been taken, for Don Silvano Razzi entrusted it to the painter Zanobi
Poggini, to the end that he might make a copy for Bartolommeo Gondi, who
had asked him for