emained, that in which Pallas is tuning an
instrument into accord with the lyre of Apollo, with great grace and
beauty; from which scene one is able to judge what excellence and
perfection were in the other works and figures. For the same
festivities Ridolfo Ghirlandajo had received the task of fitting up
and embellishing the Sala del Papa, which is attached to the Convent
of S. Maria Novella, and was formerly the residence of the Pontiffs in
the city of Florence; but being pressed for time, he was forced to
avail himself in some things of the work of others, and thus, after
having adorned all the other rooms, he laid on Jacopo da Pontormo the
charge of executing some pictures in fresco in the chapel where his
Holiness was to hear Mass every morning. Whereupon, setting his hand
to the work, Jacopo painted there a God the Father with many little
Angels, and a Veronica who had the Sudarium with the image of Jesus
Christ; which work, thus executed by Jacopo in so short a time, was
much extolled.

He then painted in fresco, in a chapel of the Church of S. Ruffillo,
behind the Archbishop's Palace in Florence, Our Lady with her Son in
her arms between S. Michelagnolo and S. Lucia, and two other Saints
kneeling; and, in the lunette of the chapel, a God the Father with
some Seraphim about Him. Next, having been commissioned by Maestro
Jacopo, a Servite friar, as he had greatly desired, to paint a part of
the court of the Servites, because Andrea del Sarto had gone off to
France and left the work of that court unfinished, he set himself with
much study to make the cartoons. But since he was poorly provided with
the things of this world, and was obliged, while studying in order to
win honour, to have something to live upon, he executed over the door
of the Hospital for Women--behind the Church of the Priest's Hospital,
between the Piazza di S. Marco and the Via di S. Gallo, and exactly
opposite to the wall of the Sisters of S. Catharine of Siena--two most
beautiful figures in chiaroscuro, with Christ in the guise of a
pilgrim awaiting certain women in order to give them hospitality and
lodging; which work was deservedly much extolled in those days, as it
still is, by all good judges. At this same time he painted some
pictures and little scenes in oils for the Masters of the Mint, on the
Carro della Moneta, which goes every year in the procession of S.
John; the workmanship of which car was by the hand of Marco del Tasso.
And ove