the altar-picture for one
of the chapels in that Duomo, wherein he painted a nude Christ with the
Cross, and about Him many Saints, among whom is a S. Bartholomew flayed,
which has the appearance of a true anatomical subject and of a man
flayed in reality, so natural it is and imitated with such diligence
from an anatomical subject. That altar-picture, which is beautiful in
every part, was placed, as I have said, in a chapel from which they
removed another by the hand of Benedetto da Pescia, a disciple of
Giulio Romano. Bronzino then made for Duke Cosimo a full-length portrait
of the dwarf Morgante, nude, and in two ways--namely, on one side of the
picture the front, and on the other the back, with the bizarre and
monstrous members which that dwarf has; which picture, of its kind, is
beautiful and marvellous. For Ser Carlo Gherardi of Pistoia, who from
his youth was a friend of Bronzino, he executed at various times,
besides the portrait of Ser Carlo himself, a very beautiful Judith
placing the head of Holofernes in a basket, and on the cover that
protects that picture, in the manner of a mirror, a Prudence looking at
herself; and for the same man a picture of Our Lady, which is one of the
most beautiful things that he has ever done, because it has
extraordinary design and relief. And the same Bronzino executed the
portrait of the Duke when his Excellency was come to the age of forty,
and also that of the Lady Duchess, both of which are as good likenesses
as could be. After Giovan Battista Cavalcanti had caused a chapel to be
built in S. Spirito, at Florence, with most beautiful variegated marbles
conveyed from beyond the sea at very great cost, and had laid there the
remains of his father Tommaso, he had the head and bust of the father
executed by Fra Giovanni Agnolo Montorsoli, and the altar-piece Bronzino
painted, depicting in it Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene in the form
of a gardener, and more distant two other Maries, all figures executed
with incredible diligence.

Jacopo da Pontormo having left unfinished at his death the chapel in S.
Lorenzo, and the Lord Duke having ordained that Bronzino should complete
it, he finished in the part where the Deluge is many nudes that were
wanting at the foot, and gave perfection to that part, and in the other,
where at the foot of the Resurrection of the Dead many figures were
wanting over a space about one braccio in height and as wide as the
whole wall, he painted them a