essandro; wherein, among other things, Cristofano executed the
coat of arms of the Duchess Margherita of Austria, with the balls,
upheld by a most beautiful eagle, with some boys, very well done.

Not long afterwards, when Duke Alessandro had been assassinated, a
compact was made in the Borgo to hand over one of the gates of the
city to Piero Strozzi, when he came to Sestino, and letters were
therefore written to Cristofano by some soldiers exiled from the
Borgo, entreating him that he should consent to help them in this:
which letters received, although Cristofano did not grant their
request, yet, in order not to do a mischief to the soldiers, he chose
rather to tear them up, as he did, than to lay them, as according to
the laws and edicts he should have done, before Gherardo Gherardi, who
was then Commissioner for the Lord Duke Cosimo in the Borgo. When the
troubles were over and the matter became known, many citizens of the
Borgo were exiled as rebels, and among them Doceno; and Signor
Alessandro Vitelli, who knew the truth of this affair and could have
helped him, did not do so, to the end that Cristofano might be as it
were forced to serve him in the work of his garden at Citta di
Castello, of which we have spoken above.

After having consumed much time in this service, without any profit or
advantage, Cristofano finally took refuge, almost in despair, with
other exiles, in the village of S. Giustino in the States of the
Church, a mile and a half distant from the Borgo and very near the
Florentine frontier. In that place, although he stayed there at his
peril, he painted for Abbot Bufolini of Citta di Castello, who has
most beautiful and commodious apartments there, a chamber in a tower,
with a pattern of little boys and figures very well foreshortened to
be seen from below, and with grotesques, festoons, and masks, the most
lovely and the most bizarre that could be imagined. This chamber, when
finished, so pleased the Abbot that he caused him to do another, in
which, desiring to make some ornaments of stucco, and not having
marble to grind into powder for mixing it, for this purpose he found a
very good substitute in some stones from a river-bed, veined with
white, the powder from which took a good and very firm hold. And
within these ornaments of stucco Cristofano then painted some scenes
from Roman history, executing them so well in fresco that it was a
marvel.

At that time Giorgio Vasari was painting in fre