ne his friend, a tailor; but the tailor having died
before the work was finished, it remained in the hands of Jacopo, who
was at that time with Mariotto, and Mariotto took pride in it, and
showed it as a rare work to all who entered his workshop. Now
Raffaello da Urbino, coming in those days to Florence, saw with
infinite marvel the work and the lad who had done it, and prophesied
of Jacopo that which was afterwards seen to come true. Not long
afterwards, Mariotto having departed from Florence and gone to Viterbo
to execute the panel-picture that Fra Bartolommeo had begun there,
Jacopo, who was young, solitary, and melancholy, being thus left
without a master, went by himself to work under Andrea del Sarto, at
the very moment when Andrea had finished the stories of S. Filippo in
the court of the Servites, which pleased Jacopo vastly, as did all his
other works and his whole manner and design. Jacopo having then set
himself to make every effort to imitate him, no long time passed
before it was seen that he had made marvellous progress in drawing and
colouring, insomuch that from his facility it seemed as if he had been
many years in art.

Now Andrea had finished in those days a panel-picture of the
Annunciation for the Church of the Friars of S. Gallo, which is now
destroyed, as has been related in his Life; and he gave the predella
of that panel-picture to Jacopo to execute in oils. Jacopo painted in
it a Dead Christ, with two little Angels who are weeping over Him and
illuminating Him with two torches, and, in two round pictures at the
sides, two Prophets, which were executed by him so ably, that they
have the appearance of having been painted not by a mere lad but by a
practised master; but it may also be, as Bronzino says, that he
remembers having heard from Jacopo da Pontormo himself that Rosso
likewise worked on this predella. And even as Andrea was assisted by
Jacopo in executing the predella, so also was he aided by him in
finishing the many pictures and works that Andrea continually had in
hand.

In the meantime, Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici having been elected
Supreme Pontiff under the title of Leo X, there were being made all
over Florence by the friends and adherents of that house many
escutcheons of the Pontiff, in stone, in marble, on canvas, and in
fresco. Wherefore the Servite Friars, wishing to give some sign of
their service and devotion to that house and Pontiff, caused the arms
of Leo to be made in