k habit of a prelate; and he made a
portrait of his disciple Fra Diamante among those who are bewailing S.
Stephen. This work is in truth the most excellent of all his paintings,
both for the reasons mentioned above, and because he made the figures
somewhat larger than life, which encouraged those who came after him to
give grandeur to their manner. So greatly was he esteemed for his
excellent gifts, that many circumstances in his life that were worthy of
blame were passed over in consideration of the eminence of his great
talents. In this work he portrayed Messer Carlo, the natural son of
Cosimo de' Medici, who was then Provost of that church, which received
great benefactions from him and from his house.

In the year 1463, when he had finished this work, he painted a panel in
distemper, containing a very beautiful Annunciation, for the Church of
S. Jacopo in Pistoia, by order of Messer Jacopo Bellucci, of whom he
made therein a most vivid portrait from the life. In the house of
Pulidoro Bracciolini there is a picture by his hand of the Birth of Our
Lady; and in the Hall of the Tribunal of Eight in Florence he painted in
distemper a Madonna with the Child in her arms, on a lunette. In the
house of Lodovico Capponi there is another picture with a very
beautiful Madonna; and in the hands of Bernardo Vecchietti, a gentleman
of Florence and a man of a culture and excellence beyond my power of
expression, there is a little picture by the hand of the same man,
containing a very beautiful S. Augustine engaged in his studies. Even
better is a S. Jerome in Penitence, of the same size, in the guardaroba
of Duke Cosimo; for if Fra Filippo was a rare master in all his
pictures, he surpassed himself in the small ones, to which he gave such
grace and beauty that nothing could be better, as may be seen in the
predelle of all the panels that he painted. In short, he was such that
none surpassed him in his own times, and few in our own; and
Michelagnolo has not only always extolled him, but has imitated him in
many things.

For the Church of S. Domenico Vecchio in Perugia, also, he painted a
panel that was afterwards placed on the high-altar, containing a
Madonna, S. Peter, S. Paul, S. Louis, and S. Anthony the Abbot. Messer
Alessandro degli Alessandri, a Chevalier of that day and a friend of
Filippo, caused him to paint a panel for the church of his villa at
Vincigliata on the hill of Fiesole, containing a S. Laurence and other
Sain