an
Annunciation, which to-day is half spoilt through having been exposed
for many years. In the Pieve of the same city he painted the chapel
which is now near the Office of Works; and this has been almost wholly
ruined by damp. Truly unfortunate has this poor painter been with his
works, seeing that almost the greater part of them have been destroyed,
either by damp or by the ruin of the buildings. On a round column in the
said Pieve he painted a S. Vincent in fresco; and in S. Francesco he
made some saints round a Madonna in half-relief, for the family of the
Viviani, with the Apostles on the arch above, receiving the Holy Spirit,
and some other saints in the vaulting, and on one side Christ with the
Cross on His shoulder, pouring blood from His side into the Chalice, and
round Christ some angels very well wrought. Opposite to this, in the
Chapel of the Company of Stone-cutters, Masons, and Carpenters,
dedicated to the four Crowned Saints, he made a Madonna, and the said
Saints with the instruments of those trades in their hands, and below,
also in fresco, two scenes of their acts, and the Saints being beheaded
and thrown into the sea. In this work there are very beautiful attitudes
and efforts in the figures that are raising those bodies, placed in
sacks, on their shoulders, in order to carry them to the sea, for there
are seen in them liveliness and vivacity. In S. Domenico, also, near the
high-altar, on the right-hand wall, he painted in fresco a Madonna, S.
Anthony, and S. Nicholas, for the family of the Alberti da Catenaia, of
which place they were the Lords before its destruction, when they came
to dwell, some in Arezzo and some in Florence. And that they are one and
the same family is shown by the arms of both one and the other, which
are the same; although it is true that to-day those of Arezzo are
called, not "Degli Alberti," but "Da Catenaia," and those of Florence
not "Da Catenaia," but "Degli Alberti." And I remember to have seen, and
also read, that the Abbey of the Sasso--which was in the mountains of
Catenaia, and which has now been pulled down and rebuilt lower down
towards the Arno--was erected by the same Alberti for the Congregation
of Camaldoli; and to-day it belongs to the Monastery of the Angeli in
Florence, which acknowledges it as coming from the said family, which is
among the noblest in Florence.

[Footnote 12: See note on p. 57, Vol. I.]

In the old Audience Chamber of the Fraternity of S.