d to Florence, Filippo undertook to paint at his
leisure the Chapel of the elder Filippo Strozzi in S. Maria Novella,
and he actually began it; but, having finished the ceiling, he was
compelled to return to Rome, where he wrought a tomb with
stucco-work for the said Cardinal, and decorated with gesso a little
chapel beside that tomb in a part of the same Church of the Minerva,
together with certain figures, some of which were executed by his
disciple, Raffaellino del Garbo. The chapel described above was
valued by Maestro Lanzilago of Padua and by the Roman Antonio, known
as Antoniasso, two of the best painters that were then in Rome,
at 2,000 ducats of gold, without the cost of the blues and of the
assistants. Having received this sum, Filippo returned to Florence,
where he finished the aforesaid Chapel of the Strozzi, which was
executed so well, and with so much art and design, that it causes
all who see it to marvel, by reason of the novelty and variety of
the bizarre things that are seen therein--armed men, temples, vases,
helmet-crests, armour, trophies, spears, banners, garments, buskins,
head-dresses, sacerdotal vestments, and other things--all executed
in so beautiful a manner that they deserve the highest commendation.
In this work there is the scene of Drusiana being restored to life
by S. John the Evangelist, wherein we see most admirably expressed
the marvel of the bystanders at beholding a man restore life to a
dead woman by a mere sign of the cross; and the greatest amazement
of all is seen in a priest, or rather philosopher, whichever he may
be, who is clothed in ancient fashion and has a vase in his hand. In
the same scene, likewise, among a number of women draped in various
manners, there is a little boy, who, terrified by a small spaniel
spotted with red, which has seized him with its teeth by one of his
swathing-bands, is running round his mother and hiding himself among
her clothes, and appears to be as much afraid of being bitten by the
dog as his mother is awestruck and filled with a certain horror at
the resurrection of Drusiana. Next to this, in the scene where S.
John himself is being boiled in oil, we see the wrath of the judge,
who is giving orders for the fire to be increased, and the flames
reflected on the face of the man who is blowing at them; and all the
figures are painted in beautiful and varied attitudes. On the other
side is S. Philip in the Temple of Mars, compelling the serpent,
w