able in his
conversation and in all his affairs, and much honoured; and as loving
and liberal with his possessions as a noble craftsman such as he is
could well be. He has been peaceful by nature, and has never done an
injury to any man, and he has always loved all able men in his
profession, as I know, who have maintained a strait friendship with him
for three-and-forty years, that is, from 1524 down to the present year,
ever since I began to know and to love him in that year of 1524, when he
was working at the Certosa with Pontormo, whose works I used as a youth
to go to draw in that place.

[Illustration: GIULIANO DE' MEDICI

(_After the painting by =Alessandro Allori=. Florence: Uffizi, 193_)

_Alinari_]

Many have been the pupils and disciples of Bronzino, but the first (to
speak now of our Academicians) is Alessandro Allori, who has been loved
always by his master, not as a disciple, but as his own son, and they
have lived and still live together with the same love, one for another,
that there is between a good father and his son. Alessandro has shown in
many pictures and portraits that he has executed up to his present age
of thirty, that he is a worthy disciple of so great a master, and that
he is seeking by diligence and continual study to arrive at that rarest
perfection which is desired by beautiful and exalted intellects. He has
painted and executed all with his own hand the Chapel of the Montaguti
in the Church of the Nunziata--namely, the altar-piece in oils, and the
walls and vaulting in fresco. In the altar-piece is Christ on high, and
the Madonna, in the act of judging, with many figures in various
attitudes and executed very well, copied from the Judgment of
Michelagnolo Buonarroti. About that altar-piece, on the same wall, are
four large figures in the forms of Prophets, or rather, Evangelists, two
above and two below; and on the vaulting are some Sibyls and Prophets
executed with great pains, study, and diligence, he having sought in the
nudes to imitate Michelagnolo. On the wall which is at the left hand
looking towards the altar, is Christ as a boy disputing in the midst of
the Doctors in the Temple; which boy is seen in a fine attitude
answering their questions, and the Doctors, and others who are there
listening attentively to him, are all different in features, attitudes,
and vestments, and among them are portraits from life of many of
Alessandro's friends, which are good likenesses. Opposit