the Apostles and in other
figures, who, with attitudes varied and beautiful, and with their
draperies to their noses in order not to feel the stench of that corrupt
body, are no less afraid and awestruck at such a marvellous miracle than
Mary and Martha are joyful and content to see life returning to the dead
body of their brother. This work was judged so excellent that many
deemed the talent of Agnolo to be destined to surpass all the disciples
of Taddeo, and even Taddeo himself; but the event proved otherwise,
because, even as in youth the will conquers every difficulty in order to
acquire fame, so a certain negligence that the years bring with them
often causes a man, instead of advancing, to go backwards, as did
Agnolo. Having given so great a proof of his talent, he was commissioned
by the family of Soderini, who had great hopes of him, to paint the
principal chapel of the Carmine, and he painted therein all the life of
Our Lady, so much less well than he had done the resurrection of
Lazarus, that he gave every man to know that he had little wish to
attend with every effort to the art of painting; for the reason that in
all that great work there is nothing else of the good save one scene,
wherein, round Our Lady, in a room, are many maidens who are wearing
diverse costumes and head-dresses, according to the diversity of the use
of those times, and are engaged in diverse exercises: this one is
spinning, that one is sewing, that other is winding thread, one is
weaving, and others working in other ways, all passing well conceived
and executed by Agnolo.

For the noble family of the Alberti, likewise, he painted in fresco the
principal chapel of the Church of S. Croce, making therein all that came
to pass in the discovery of the Cross, and he executed that work with
much mastery of handling but not with much design, for only the
colouring is beautiful and good enough. Next, in painting in fresco some
stories of S. Louis in the Chapel of the Bardi in the same church, he
acquitted himself much better. And because he used to work by caprice,
now with more zeal and now with less, working in S. Spirito, also in
Florence, within the door that leads from the square into the convent,
he made in fresco, over another door, a Madonna with the Child in her
arms, and S. Augustine and S. Nicholas, so well that the said figures
appear as if made only yesterday.

[Illustration: THE MARRIAGE OF S. CATHARINE

(_After the painting by_