Almost all his pictures were on sacred subjects; and finally, when driven from Florence to Luco by the plague, taking with him his wife and stepdaughter, he began a picture called the "Madonna del Sacco" (the Madonna of the Sack).
This fresco was to adorn the convent of the Servi, and the sketches for it were probably made in Luco. When the plague passed and the artist was able to return to Florence, he began to paint it upon the cloister walls.
Andrea, like Leonardo, painted a famous "Last Supper," although the two pictures cannot be compared. In Andrea's picture it is said that all the faces are portraits.
Just before the plague sent him and his family from Florence a most remarkable incident took place. Raphael had painted a celebrated portrait of Pope Leo X. in a group, and the picture belonged to Ottaviano de Medici. Duke Frederick II., of Mantua, longed to own this picture, and at last requested the Medici to give it to him. The Duke could not well be refused, but Ottaviano wanted to keep so great a work for himself. What was to be done? He was in great trouble over the affair. The situation seemed hopeless. It seemed certain that he must part with his beloved picture to the Duke of Mantua; but one day Andrea del Sarto declared that he could make a copy of it that even Raphael himself could not tell from his original. Ottaviano could scarcely believe this, but he begged Andrea to set about it, hoping that it might be true.
Going at the work in good earnest, Andrea painted a copy so exact that the pupil of Raphael, who had more or less to do with the original picture, could not tell which was which when he was asked to choose. This pupil, Giulio Romano, was so familiar with every stroke of Raphael's that if he were deceived surely any one might be; so the replica was given to the Duke of Mantua, who never found out the difference.
Years afterward Giulio Romano showed the picture to Vasari, believing it to be the original Raphael, neither Andrea nor the Medici having told Romano the truth. But Vasari, who knew the whole story, declared to Romano that what he showed him was but a copy. Romano would not believe it, but Vasari told him that he would find upon the canvas a certain mark, known to be Andrea's. Romano looked, and behold, the original Raphael became a del Sarto! The original picture hangs in the Pitti Palace, while the copy made by Andrea is in the Naples Gallery.
The introduction of Andrea to Vasari was one of the few gracious things, that Michael Angelo ever did. About Andrea he said to Raphael at the time: "There is a little fellow in Florence who will bring sweat to your brows if ever he is engaged in great works." Raphael, would certainly have agreed, with him had he known what was to happen in regard to the Leo X. picture.
Notwithstanding Andrea's unfortunate temperament, which caused him to be guided mostly by circumstances instead of guiding them, he was said to be improving all the time in his art. He had a great many pupils, but none of them could tolerate his wife for long, so they were always changing.
Throughout his life the artist longed for tenderness and encouragement from his wife, and finally, without ever receiving it, he died in a desolate way, untended even by her. After the siege of Florence there came a pestilence, and Andrea was overtaken by it. His wife, afraid that she too would become ill, would have nothing to do with him. She kept away and he died quite alone, few caring that he was dead and no one taking the trouble to follow him to his grave. Thus one of the greatest of Florentine painters lived and died. Years after his death, the artist Jacopo da Empoli, was copying Andrea's "Birth of the Virgin" when an old woman of about eighty years on her way to mass stopped to speak with him. She pointed to the beautiful Virgin's face in the picture and said: "I am that woman." And so she was--the widow of the great Andrea. Though she had treated him so cruelly, she was glad to have it known that she was the widow of the dead genius.
