lying through the air,
like those of Careggi. He then painted in certain gigantic women,
almost entirely nude, Philosophy, Astrology, Geometry, Music,
Arithmetic, and a Ceres; with some little scenes in medallions,
executed with various tints of colour and appropriate to the figures.
Although this work, so fatiguing and so laboured, did not give much
satisfaction, or, if a certain measure of satisfaction, much less than
was expected, yet his Excellency declared that it pleased him, and
availed himself of Jacopo on every occasion, chiefly because that
painter was held in great veneration by the people on account of the
very good and beautiful works that he had executed in the past.

The Lord Duke then brought to Florence the Flemings, Maestro Giovanni
Rosso and Maestro Niccolo, excellent masters in arras-tapestries, to
the end that the art might be learned and practised by the
Florentines, and he ordained that tapestries in silk and gold should
be executed for the Council Hall of the Two Hundred at a cost of
60,000 crowns, and that Jacopo and Bronzino should make the cartoons
with the stories of Joseph. But, when Jacopo had made two of them, in
one of which is the scene when the death of Joseph is announced to
Jacob and the bloody garments are shown to him, and in the other the
Flight of Joseph from the wife of Potiphar, leaving his garment
behind, they did not please either the Duke or those masters who had
to put them into execution, for they appeared to them to be strange
things and not likely to be successful when executed in woven
tapestries. And so Jacopo did not go on to make any more cartoons, but
returned to his usual labours and painted a picture of Our Lady, which
was presented by the Duke to Signor Don ..., who took it to Spain.

Now his Excellency, following in the footsteps of his ancestors, has
always sought to embellish and adorn his city; and he resolved, the
necessity having come to his notice, to cause to be painted all the
principal chapel of the magnificent Temple of S. Lorenzo, formerly
built by the great Cosimo de' Medici, the elder. Whereupon he gave the
charge of this to Jacopo da Pontormo, either of his own accord, or, as
was said, at the instance of Messer Pier Francesco Ricci, his
major-domo; and Jacopo was very glad of that favour, for the reason
that, although the greatness of the work, he being well advanced in
years, gave him food for thought and perhaps dismayed him, on the
other hand h