, and himself unhappy, in
that no work of his ever fully satisfied him.

After Giuliano had studied design for some time in the above-named
garden, he worked, together with Buonarroti and Granacci, under
Domenico Ghirlandajo, at the time when he was painting the chapel in
S. Maria Novella. Then, having made his growth and become a passing
good master, he betook himself to work in company with Mariotto
Albertinelli in Gualfonda; in which place he finished a panel-picture
that is now at the door of entrance of S. Maria Maggiore in Florence,
containing S. Alberto, a Carmelite friar, who has under his feet the
Devil in the form of a woman, a work that was much extolled.

It was the custom in Florence before the siege of 1530, at the burial
of dead persons of good family and noble blood, to carry in front of
the bier a string of pennons fixed round a panel that a porter bore on
his head; which pennons were afterwards left in the church in memory
of the deceased and of his family. Now, when the elder Cosimo Rucellai
died, Bernardo and Palla, his sons, in order to have something new,
thought of having not pennons, but in place of them a quadrangular
banner four braccia wide and five braccia high, with some pennons at
the foot containing the arms of the Rucellai. These men therefore
giving this work to Giuliano to execute, he painted on the body of the
said banner four great figures, executed very well--namely, S. Cosimo,
S. Damiano, S. Peter, and S. Paul, which were truly most beautiful
paintings, and done with more diligence than had ever been shown in
any other work on cloth.

These and other works of Giuliano's having been seen by Mariotto
Albertinelli, he recognized how careful Giuliano was in following the
designs that were put before him, without departing from them by a
hair's breadth, and, since he was preparing in those days to abandon
art, he gave him to finish a panel-picture that Fra Bartolommeo di San
Marco, his friend and companion, had formerly left only designed and
shaded with water-colours on the gesso of the panel, as was his
custom. Giuliano, then, setting his hand to this work, executed it
with supreme diligence and labour, and it was placed at that time in
the Church of S. Gallo, without the gate of that name. The church and
convent were afterwards pulled down on account of the siege, and the
picture was carried into the city and placed in the Priests' Hospital
in the Via di S. Gallo, and then from the