s attention to Judas as an undesirable
member of the little band of disciples by placing him apart, the
only one on his side of the table; which was avoiding the real task,
since naturally when one of the company was forced into so sinister
a position the question would be already answered. Castagno indeed
renders Judas so obviously untrustworthy as to make it a surprise
that he ever was admitted among the disciples (or wished to be one)
at all; while Vasari blandly suggests that he is the very image of the
painter himself. Other positions which later artists converted into a
convention may also be noted: John, for example, is reclining on the
table in an ecstasy of affection and fidelity; while the Florentine
loggia as the scene of the meal was often reproduced later.

Andrea del Castagno began life as a farm lad, but was educated as an
artist at the cost of one of the less notable Medici. He had a vigorous
way with his brush, as we see here and have seen elsewhere. In the
Duomo, for example, we saw his equestrian portrait of Niccolo da
Tolentino, a companion to Uccello's Hawkwood. When the Albizzi and
Peruzzi intrigues which had led to the banishment of Cosimo de' Medici
came to their final frustration with the triumphant return of Cosimo,
it was Andrea who was commissioned by the Signoria to paint for the
outside of the Bargello a picture of the leaders of the insurrection,
upside down. Vasari is less to be trusted in his dates and facts in his
memoir of Andrea del Castagno than anywhere else; for he states that
he commemorated the failure of the Pazzi Conspiracy (which occurred
twenty years after his death), and accuses him not only of murdering
his fellow-painter Domenico Veneziano but confessing to the crime;
the best answer to which allegation is that Domenico survived Andrea
by four years.

We may now return to S. Marco. The convent as we now see it was
built by Michelozzo, Donatello's friend and partner and the friend
also of Cosimo de' Medici, at whose cost he worked here. Antonino,
the saintly head of the monastery, having suggested to Cosimo that
he should apply some of his wealth, not always too nicely obtained,
to the Lord, Cosimo began literally to squander money on S. Marco,
dividing his affection between S. Lorenzo, which he completed upon
the lines laid down by his father, and this Dominican monastery,
where he even had a cell reserved for his own use, with a bedroom
in addition, whither he might now