4. Madonna and Child, in the "Hall of the Education of Jupiter" in the Pitti Palace, one of his most pleasing groups. This is supposed by the commentators of Vasari to be the altarpiece painted for Giovanni di Paolo Merciajo, but Biadi traces it through the possession of Antonio, son of Zanobi Bracci, to its present possessors. The mistake arises from Vasari often confusing the names Annunciations and Assumptions with Madonnas.
5. A Holy Family, for Andrea Santini, which awakened great admiration in Florence. It was in the possession of Signer Alessandro Curti Lepri, by whose permission Morghen's print was taken.
6. The Head of our Saviour, over the altar of the SS. Annunziata, ordered by the sacristan of the order. A magnificent head, full of grandeur and expression, and very clear in the flesh tints. Empoli made several copies of it.
7. The Madonna di San Francesco, Andrea's masterpiece among easel pictures. It was a commission from a monk of the order of "Minorites of Santa Croce," who was intendant of the nuns of S. Francesco, and advised them to employ Andrea. In grandiose simplicity this surpasses Albertinelli's Visitation, in soft gradations and rich mellowness of colour it equals Fra Bartolommeo at his best, for tenderness in the attitude of the child it is quite Raphaelesque. The Madonna is standing on a pedestal adorned with sculptured harpies. She holds the Divine Child in one arm; its little hands are twined tenderly round her neck, and it seems to be climbing closer to her. The two children at her feet give a suggestive triangular grouping, while the dignified figures of S. Francis and S. John the Evangelist form supports on each side, and rear up a pyramid of beauty. Rosini's term "soave" just expresses this picture, so fused and soft, rich yet transparent in the colouring. The olive-brown robe of one saint is balanced by the rich red of the other. In the Virgin, a deep blue and mellow orange are combined by a crimson bodice. The price paid to the painter for this was low because he asked little; but a century or two later, Ferdinando de' Medici, son of Cosmo III., spent 20,000 scudi to restore the church, and had a copy of the picture made in return for a gift of the original, which is now the gem of the Tribune in the Uffizi.
8. The Disputa, di S. Agostino is another masterpiece, showing as much power as the last-named work displays of softness. It was painted at the order of the Eremite monks of San Gallo for their church of San Jacopo tra Fossi, where it was injured by a flood in 1557, and removed later to the Hall of Saturn in the Pitti Palace. The composition is level, the four disputing saints standing in a row, the two listeners, S. Sebastian and Mary Magdalen, kneeling in front. S Agostino, with fierce vehemence, expounds the mystery of the Trinity; S. Stephen turns to S. Francesco interrogatively, S. Domenico (whom Vasari, by the way, calls S. Peter Martyr) has a face full of silent eloquence—he seems only waiting his turn to speak. In S. Sebastian we have a good study from the nude, and in Mary Magdalen's kneeling figure—a charming portrait of Lucrezia—is concentrated the principal focus of colour.
9. Four Saints, SS. Gio. Battista, Gio. Gualberto, S. Michele, and Bernardo Cardinale, a beautifully-painted picture, once in the Hermitage of Vallombrosa. There were originally two little angels in the midst dividing the saints, as in our illustration. When the picture was transferred to the Gallery of the Belle Arti, where it now is, the angels were taken out and the divided saints brought into a more compact group. The angels are in a frame between two frescoed Madonnas of Fra Bartolommeo.
By this time the fame of Andrea del Sarto, both as a fresco and oil painter, had risen to the highest point. Michelangelo only echoed the opinion of others when he said to Raphael, "There is a little fellow in Florence who will bring the sweat to your brow if ever he is engaged in great works." His style of composition was important, his figures varied and life-like, his draperies dignified. "The main excellence, however, in which Andrea stands unique among his contemporaries rests in the incomparable blending of colour, in the soft flesh tints, in the exquisite chiaroscuro, in the transparent clearness even of his deepest shadows, and in his entirely new manner of perfect modelling." [Footnote: Lübke History of Art, vol. ii. p. 241.] His method, as shown in an unfinished picture of the Adoration of the Magi in the Guadagni Palace, was to paint on a light ground; the sketch was a black outline, the features and details not defined, but often roughly indicated. He finished first the sky and background. The flesh tints, draperies, &c., were all true in tone from the first laying in. [Footnote: Eastlake's Materials for History of Oil Fainting.] He did not place shades one over the other, and fuse them together glaze by glaze as Leonardo did, but used an opaque dead colouring which allowed of correction; the system was rapid, but deficient in depth and mellowness; "the lights are fused and bright," but "the shadows, owing to their viscous consistency, imperfectly fill the outlines." [Footnote: Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. in. chap. xvii. p. 670.] In a Holy Family in the Louvre, S. Elizabeth's hand is painted across S. John, and shows the shadow underneath it, being grey at that part. Though more solid, he could not paint light over dark without injuring his brilliance of colour.
Albertinelli, on the contrary, when he painted and repainted his Annunciation, washed out the under layer with essential oil before making his "pentimenti" or corrections, and in this way the thinness was kept.
In Andrea's early style this thinness is apparent, especially in the Joseph series, painted for Pier Francesco Borgherini.
Biadi classes Andrea's works in three styles. The first showing the influence of Piero di Cosimo, the second—to which the best works in the Servi cloisters belong—is a larger and more natural style, after the study of Michelangelo and Leonardo.