n such a
way that his designs were traced over the whole facade by that tool;
after which, scraping away the white from the grounds of the grotesques,
he went on to shade them or to hatch a good design upon them with the
same iron tool. Finally, he went over the whole work, shading it with a
liquid water-colour like water tinted with black. All this produces a
very pleasing, rich, and beautiful effect; and there was an account of
the method in the twenty-sixth chapter, dealing with sgraffiti, in the
Treatise on Technique.

The first facades that Andrea executed in this manner were that of the
Gondi, which is full of delicacy and grace, in Borg' Ognissanti, and
that of Lanfredino Lanfredini, which is very ornate and rich in the
variety of its compartments, on the Lungarno between the Ponte S.
Trinita and the Ponte della Carraja, near S. Spirito. He also decorated
in sgraffito the house of Andrea and Tommaso Sertini, near S. Michele in
Piazza Padella, making it more varied and grander in manner than the
two others. He painted in chiaroscuro the facade of the Church of the
Servite Friars, for which work he caused the painter Tommaso di Stefano
to paint in two niches the Angel bringing the Annunciation to the
Virgin; and in the court, where there are the stories of S. Filippo and
of Our Lady painted by Andrea del Sarto, he executed between the two
doors a very beautiful escutcheon of Pope Leo X. And on the occasion of
the visit of that Pontiff to Florence he executed many beautiful
ornaments in the form of grotesques on the facade of S. Maria del Fiore,
for Jacopo Sansovino, who gave him his sister for wife. He executed the
baldachin under which the Pope walked, covering the upper part with most
beautiful grotesques, and the hangings round it with the arms of that
Pope and other devices of the Church; and this baldachin was afterwards
presented to the Church of S. Lorenzo in Florence, where it is still to
be seen. He also decorated many standards and banners for the visit of
Leo, and in honour of many who were made Chevaliers by that Pontiff and
by other Princes, of which there are some hung up in various churches in
that city.

Andrea, working constantly in the service of the house of Medici,
assisted at the preparations for the wedding of Duke Giuliano and that
of Duke Lorenzo, executing an abundance of various ornaments in the form
of grotesques; and so, also, in the obsequies of those Princes. In all
this he was large