s new study of Andrea's then began to spread among the
peasants; whereupon, as his good-fortune would have it, the matter
coming to the ears of a Florentine gentleman named Bernardetto de'
Medici, whose possessions were in that district, he expressed a wish to
know the boy; and finally, having seen him and having heard him
discourse with great readiness, he asked him whether he would like to
learn the art of painting. Andrea answered that nothing could happen to
him that would be more welcome or more pleasing than this, and
Bernardetto took the boy with him to Florence, to the end that he might
become perfect in that art, and set him to work with one of those
masters who were then esteemed the best.

[Illustration: THE LAST SUPPER

(_After the fresco by =Andrea dal Castagno=. Florence: S. Apollonia_)

_Alinari_]

Thereupon Andrea, following the art of painting and devoting himself
heart and soul to its studies, displayed very great intelligence in the
difficulties of that art, above all in draughtsmanship. But he was not
so successful in the colouring of his works, which he made somewhat
crude and harsh, thus impairing to a great extent their excellence and
grace, and depriving them, above all, of a certain quality of
loveliness, which is not found in his colouring. He showed very great
boldness in the movements of his figures and much vehemence in the
heads both of men and of women, making them grave in aspect and
excellent in draughtsmanship. There are works coloured in fresco,
painted by his hand in his early youth, in the cloister of S. Miniato al
Monte as one descends from the church to go into the convent, including
a story of S. Miniato and S. Cresci leaving their father and mother. In
S. Benedetto, a most beautiful monastery without the Porta a Pinti, both
in a cloister and in the church, there were many pictures by the hand of
Andrea, of which there is no need to make mention, since they were
thrown to the ground in the siege of Florence. Within the city, in the
first cloister of the Monastery of the Monks of the Angeli, opposite to
the principal door, he painted the Crucifix that is still there to-day,
with the Madonna, S. John, S. Benedict, and S. Romualdo; and at the head
of the cloister, which is above the garden, he made another like it,
only varying the heads and a few other details. In S. Trinita, beside
the Chapel of Maestro Luca, he painted a S. Andrew. In a hall at Legnaia
he painted many illustri