te that he is executing every day. Not long ago he
painted for Don Silvano Razzi, a Camaldolite monk in the Monastery of
the Angeli at Florence, who is much his friend, a picture about one
braccio and a half high of a S. Catharine, so beautiful and well
executed, that it is not inferior to any other picture by the hand of
this noble craftsman; insomuch that nothing seems to be wanting in her
save the spirit and that voice which confounded the tyrant and confessed
Christ her well-beloved spouse even to the last breath; and that father,
like the truly gentle spirit that he is, has nothing that he esteems and
holds in price more than that picture. Agnolo made a portrait of the
Cardinal, Don Giovanni de' Medici, the son of Duke Cosimo, which was
sent to the Court of the Emperor for Queen Joanna; and afterwards that
of the Lord Don Francesco, Prince of Florence, which was a picture very
like the reality, and executed with such diligence that it has the
appearance of a miniature. For the nuptials of Queen Joanna of Austria,
wife of that Prince, he painted in three large canvases which were
placed at the Ponte alla Carraia, as will be described at the end, some
scenes of the Nuptials of Hymen, of such beauty that they appeared not
things for a festival, but worthy to be set in some honourable place for
ever, so finished they were and executed with such diligence. For the
same Lord Prince he painted a few months ago a small picture with little
figures which has no equal, and it may be said that it is truly a
miniature. And since at this his present age of sixty-five he is no less
enamoured of the matters of art than he was as a young man, he has
undertaken recently, according to the wishes of the Duke, to execute two
scenes in fresco on the wall beside the organ in the Church of S.
Lorenzo, in which there is not a doubt that he will prove the excellent
Bronzino that he has always been.

This master has delighted much, and still delights, in poetry; wherefore
he has written many capitoli and sonnets, part of which have been
printed. But above all, with regard to poetry, he is marvellous in the
style of his capitoli after the manner of Berni, insomuch that at the
present day there is no one who writes better in that kind of verse, nor
things more fanciful and bizarre, as will be seen one day if all his
works, as is believed and hoped, come to be printed. Bronzino has been
and still is most gentle and a very courteous friend, agree