After returning to Florence, Andrea painted a picture with a nude half-length figure of S. John the Baptist, a very beautiful thing, which he executed at the commission of Giovan Maria Benintendi, who presented it afterwards to the Lord Duke Cosimo.

CÆSAR RECEIVING THE TRIBUTE OF EGYPT
(After the fresco by Andrea del Sarto.
Florence: Poggio a Caiano)
Alinari
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While affairs were proceeding in this manner, Andrea, remembering sometimes his connection with France, sighed from his heart: and if he had hoped to find pardon for the fault he had committed, there is no doubt that he would have gone back. Indeed, to try his fortune, he sought to see whether his talents might be helpful to him in the matter. Thus he painted a picture of a half-naked S. John the Baptist, meaning to send it to the Grand Master of France, to the end that he might occupy himself with restoring the painter to the favour of the King. However, whatever may have been the reason, he never sent it after all, but sold it to the Magnificent Ottaviano de' Medici, who always valued it much as long as he lived, even as he did two pictures of Our Lady executed for him by Andrea in one and the same manner, which are in his house at the present day.

Not long afterwards he was commissioned by Zanobi Bracci to paint a picture for Monsignore di San Biause,[6] which he executed with all possible diligence, hoping that it might enable him to regain the favour of King Francis, to whose service he desired to return. He also executed for Lorenzo Jacopi a picture of much greater size than was usual, containing a Madonna seated with the Child in her arms, accompanied by two other figures that are seated on some steps; and the whole, both in drawing and in colouring, is similar to his other works. He painted for Giovanni d' Agostino Dini, likewise, a picture of Our Lady, which is now much esteemed for its beauty; and he made so good a portrait from life of Cosimo Lapi, that it seems absolutely alive.

Afterwards, in the year 1523, the plague came to Florence and also to some places in the surrounding country; and Andrea, in order to avoid that pestilence and also to do some work, went at the instance of Antonio Brancacci to the Mugello to paint a panel for the Nuns of S. Piero a Luco, of the Order of Camaldoli, taking with him his wife and a stepdaughter, together with his wife's sister and an assistant. Living quietly there, then, he set his hand to the work. And since those venerable ladies showed more and more kindness and courtesy every day to his wife, to himself, and to the whole party, he applied himself with the greatest possible willingness to executing that panel, in which he painted a Dead Christ mourned by Our Lady, S. John the Evangelist, and the Magdalene, figures so lifelike, that they appear truly to have spirit and breath. In S. John may be seen the loving tenderness of that Apostle, with affection in the tears of the Magdalene, and bitter sorrow in the face and whole attitude of the Madonna, whose aspect, as she gazes on Christ, who seems to be truly a real corpse and in relief, is so pitiful, that she fills with helpless awe and bewilderment the minds of S. Peter and S. Paul, who are contemplating the Dead Saviour of the World in the lap of His mother. From these marvellous conceptions it is clear how much Andrea delighted in finish and perfection of art; and to tell the truth, this panel has given more fame to that convent than all the buildings and all the other costly works, however magnificent and extraordinary, that have been executed there.

This picture finished, Andrea, seeing that the danger of the plague was not yet past, stayed some weeks more in the same place, where he was so well received and treated with such kindness. During that time, in order not to be idle, he painted not only a Visitation of Our Lady to S. Elizabeth, which is in the church, on the right hand above the Manger, serving as a crown to a little ancient panel, but also, on a canvas of no great size, a most beautiful head of Christ, somewhat similar to that on the altar of the Nunziata, but not so finished. This head, which may in truth be numbered among the better works that issued from the hands of Andrea, is now in the Monastery of the Monks of the Angeli at Florence, in the possession of that very reverend father, Don Antonio da Pisa, who loves not only the men of excellence in our arts, but every man of talent without exception. From this picture several copies have been taken, for Don Silvano Razzi entrusted it to the painter Zanobi Poggini, to the end that he might make a copy for Bartolommeo Gondi, who had asked him for one, and some others were made, which are held in vast veneration in Florence.

In this manner, then, Andrea passed without danger the time of the plague, and those nuns received from the genius of that great man such a work as can bear comparison with the most excellent pictures that have been painted in our day; wherefore it is no marvel that Ramazzotto, the captain of mercenaries of Scaricalasino, sought to obtain it on several occasions during the siege of Florence, in order to send it to his chapel in S. Michele in Bosco at Bologna.

On his return to Florence, Andrea executed for Beccuccio da Gambassi, the glass-blower, who was very much his friend, a panel-picture of Our Lady in the sky with the Child in her arms, and four figures below, S. John the Baptist, S. Mary Magdalene, S. Sebastian, and S. Rocco; and in the predella he made portraits from nature, which are most lifelike, of Beccuccio and his wife. This panel is now at Gambassi, a township in Valdelsa, between Volterra and Florence. For a chapel in the villa of Zanobi Bracci at Rovezzano, he painted a most beautiful picture of Our Lady suckling a Child, with a Joseph, all executed with such diligence that they stand out from the panel, so strong is the relief; and this picture is now in the house of M. Antonio Bracci, the son of that Zanobi. About the same time, also, and in the above-mentioned cloister of the Scalzo, Andrea painted two other scenes, in one of which he depicted Zacharias offering sacrifice and being made dumb by the Angel appearing to him, while in the other is the Visitation of Our Lady, beautiful to a marvel.