esser Palla Strozzi,
eminent citizens often cited in the history of the city. On another wall
he painted S. Francis, in the presence of the vicar, renouncing his
inheritance from his father, Pietro Bernardone, and assuming the habit
of sackcloth, which he is girding round him with the cord. On the middle
wall he is shown going to Rome and having his Rule confirmed by Pope
Honorius, and presenting roses in January to that Pontiff. In this scene
he depicted the Hall of the Consistory, with Cardinals seated around,
and certain steps ascending to it, furnishing the flight of steps with a
balustrade, and painting there some half-length figures portrayed from
the life, among which is the portrait of the elder Lorenzo de' Medici,
the Magnificent; and there he also painted S. Francis receiving the
Stigmata. In the last he made the Saint dead, with his friars mourning
for him, among whom is one friar kissing his hands--an effect that could
not be rendered better in painting; not to mention that a Bishop in full
robes, with spectacles on his nose, is chanting the prayers for the dead
so vividly, that only the lack of sound shows him to be painted. In one
of two pictures that are on either side of the panel he portrayed
Francesco Sassetti on his knees, and in the other his wife, Monna Nera,
with their children (but these last are in the aforesaid scene of the
child being restored to life), and with certain beautiful maidens of the
same family, whose names I have not been able to discover, all in the
costumes and fashions of that age, which gives no little pleasure.
Besides this, he made four Sibyls on the vaulting, and an ornament above
the arch on the front wall without the chapel, containing the scene of
the Tiburtine Sibyl making the Emperor Octavian adore Christ, which is
executed in a masterly manner for a work in fresco, with much vivacity
and loveliness in the colours. To this work he added a panel wrought in
distemper, also by his hand, containing a Nativity of Christ that should
amaze any person of understanding, wherein he portrayed himself and made
certain heads of shepherds, which are held to be something divine. Of
this Sibyl and of other parts of this work there are some very beautiful
drawings in our book, made in chiaroscuro, and in particular the view in
perspective of the Ponte a S. Trinita.

For the Frati Ingesuati he painted a panel for their high-altar, with
certain Saints kneeling--namely, S. Giusto, Bishop of