els, one
of whom has in his arms an urn of crystal, wherein there glitters a
Cross, at which the Madonna gazes in contemplation. This work remained
unfinished, because he was not well contented with it; and yet it is
much extolled, and a good example of his manner, so full of grace and
beauty.

Meanwhile Francesco began to abandon the work of the Steccata, or at
least to carry it on so slowly that it was evident that he was not in
earnest. And this happened because he had begun to study the problems of
alchemy, and had quite deserted his profession of painting, thinking
that he would become rich quicker by congealing mercury. Wherefore,
wearing out his brain, but not in imagining beautiful inventions and
executing them with brushes and colour-mixtures, he wasted his whole
time in handling charcoal, wood, glass vessels, and other suchlike
trumperies, which made him spend more in one day than he earned by a
week's work at the Chapel of the Steccata. Having no other means of
livelihood, and being yet compelled to live, he was wasting himself away
little by little with those furnaces; and what was worse, the men of the
Company of the Steccata, perceiving that he had completely abandoned
the work, and having perchance paid him more than his due, as is often
done, brought a suit against him. Thereupon, thinking it better to
withdraw, he fled by night with some friends to Casal Maggiore. And
there, having dispersed a little of the alchemy out of his head, he
painted a panel-picture for the Church of S. Stefano, of Our Lady in the
sky, with S. John the Baptist and S. Stephen below. Afterwards he
executed a picture, the last that he ever painted, of the Roman
Lucretia, which was a thing divine and one of the best that were ever
seen by his hand; but it has disappeared, however that may have
happened, so that no one knows where it is.

By his hand, also, is a picture of some nymphs, which is now in the
house of Messer Niccolo Bufolini at Citta di Castello, and a child's
cradle, which was painted for Signora Angiola de' Rossi of Parma, wife
of Signor Alessandro Vitelli, and is likewise at Citta di Castello.

In the end, having his mind still set on his alchemy, like every other
man who has once grown crazed over it, and changing from a dainty and
gentle person into an almost savage man with long and unkempt beard and
locks, a creature quite different from his other self, Francesco went
from bad to worse, became melancholy and e