gns in chiaroscuro and ornamental borders
containing saints and stories, for ridiculous prices. For although
he had deteriorated, there sometimes issued from his hand most
beautiful designs and fancies, as is proved by many drawings that
were sold and dispersed after the death of those who used them for
embroidery; of which there are many in the book of the illustrious
hospital-director,[19] that show how able he was in draughtsmanship.
This was the reason that many vestments, hangings, and ornaments,
which are held to be very beautiful, were made for the churches of
Florence and throughout the Florentine territory, and also for
Cardinals and Bishops in Rome. At the present day this method of
embroidery, which was used by Paolo da Verona, the Florentine
Galieno, and others like them, is almost lost, and another method,
with wide stitches, has been introduced, which has neither the same
beauty nor the same careful workmanship, and is much less durable
than the other. Wherefore, in return for this benefit, although
poverty caused him misery and hardship during his lifetime, he
deserves to have honour and glory for his talents after his death.

And in truth Raffaellino was unfortunate in his connections, for he
always mixed with poor and humble people, like a man who had sunk
and become ashamed of himself, seeing that in his youth he had given
such great promise, and now knew how distant he was from the
extraordinary excellence of the works that he had made at that time.
And thus, growing old, he fell away so much from his early standard,
that his works no longer appeared to be by his hand; and forgetting
his art more and more every day, he was reduced to painting, in
addition to his usual panels and pictures, the meanest kinds of
works. And he sank so low that everything was a torment to him, but
above all his burdensome family of children, which turned all his
ability in art into mere clumsiness. Wherefore, being overtaken by
infirmities and impoverished, he finished his life in misery at the
age of fifty-eight, and was buried in S. Simone, at Florence, by the
Company of the Misericordia, in the year 1524.

He left behind him many pupils who became able masters. One, who
went in his boyhood to learn the rudiments of art from Raffaellino,
was the Florentine painter Bronzino, who afterwards acquitted
himself so well under the wing of Jacopo da Pontormo, another
painter of Florence, that he has made as much proficience in