larly Domenico Ghirlandajo, who had made a S. Jerome on the other
side; and this work won very great praise, for in the head of that Saint
he depicted the profound meditation and acute subtlety that are found in
men of wisdom who are ever concentrated on the investigation of the
highest and most difficult matters. This picture, as was said in the
Life of Ghirlandajo, has this year (1564) been removed safe and sound
from its original position.

Having thus come into credit and reputation, he was commissioned by the
Guild of Porta Santa Maria to paint in S. Marco a panel with the
Coronation of Our Lady and a choir of angels, which he designed and
executed very well. He made many works in the house of the Medici for
the elder Lorenzo, particularly a Pallas on a device of great branches,
which spouted forth fire: this he painted of the size of life, as he did
a S. Sebastian. In S. Maria Maggiore in Florence, beside the Chapel of
the Panciatichi, there is a very beautiful Pieta with little figures.
For various houses throughout the city he painted round pictures, and
many female nudes, of which there are still two at Castello, a villa of
Duke Cosimo's; one representing the birth of Venus, with those Winds and
Zephyrs that bring her to the earth, with the Cupids; and likewise
another Venus, whom the Graces are covering with flowers, as a symbol of
spring; and all this he is seen to have expressed very gracefully. Round
an apartment of the house of Giovanni Vespucci, now belonging to Piero
Salviati, in the Via de' Servi, he made many pictures which were
enclosed by frames of walnut-wood, by way of ornament and panelling,
with many most lively and beautiful figures. In the house of the Pucci,
likewise, he painted with little figures Boccaccio's tale of Nastagio
degli Onesti in four square pictures of most charming and beautiful
workmanship, and the Epiphany in a round picture. For a chapel in the
Monastery of Cestello he painted an Annunciation on a panel. Near the
side-door of S. Pietro Maggiore, for Matteo Palmieri, he painted a panel
with an infinite number of figures--namely, the Assumption of Our Lady,
with the zones of Heaven as they are represented, and the Patriarchs,
the Prophets, the Apostles, the Evangelists, the Martyrs, the
Confessors, the Doctors, the Virgins, and the Hierarchies; all from the
design given to him by Matteo, who was a learned and able man. This work
he painted with mastery and consummate diligence;