ere sent by Cosimo as a gift to Pope Eugenius IV, the
Venetian; wherefore Fra Filippo acquired great favour with that Pope by
reason of this work.

It is said that he was so amorous, that, if he saw any women who pleased
him, and if they were to be won, he would give all his possessions to
win them; and if he could in no way do this, he would paint their
portraits and cool the flame of his love by reasoning with himself. So
much a slave was he to this appetite, that when he was in this humour he
gave little or no attention to the works that he had undertaken;
wherefore on one occasion Cosimo de' Medici, having commissioned him to
paint a picture, shut him up in his own house, in order that he might
not go out and waste his time; but after staying there for two whole
days, being driven forth by his amorous--nay, beastly--passion, one
night he cut some ropes out of his bed-sheets with a pair of scissors
and let himself down from a window, and then abandoned himself for many
days to his pleasures. Thereupon, since he could not be found, Cosimo
sent out to look for him, and finally brought him back to his labour;
and thenceforward Cosimo gave him liberty to go out when he pleased,
repenting greatly that he had previously shut him up, when he thought of
his madness and of the danger that he might run. For this reason he
strove to keep a hold on him for the future by kindnesses; and so he was
served by Filippo with greater readiness, and was wont to say that the
virtues of rare minds were celestial beings, and not slavish hacks.

For the Church of S. Maria Primerana, on the Piazza of Fiesole, he
painted a panel containing the Annunciation of Our Lady by the Angel,
which shows very great diligence, and there is such beauty in the figure
of the Angel that it appears truly a celestial thing. For the Nuns of
the Murate he painted two panels: one, containing an Annunciation, is
placed on the high-altar; and the other is on an altar in the same
church, and contains stories of S. Benedict and S. Bernard. In the
Palace of the Signoria he painted an Annunciation on a panel, which is
over a door; and over another door in the said Palace he also painted a
S. Bernard. For the Sacristy of S. Spirito in Florence he executed a
panel with the Madonna surrounded by angels, and with saints on either
side--a rare work, which has ever been held in the greatest veneration
by the masters of these our arts. In the Chapel of the Wardens of Works
in