SARTO, ANDREA D'AGNOLO VANNUCCIO, called DEL, from his father's occupation of a tailor, was born in Florence in 1488. At the early age of seven years he was placed with a goldsmith, but he showed a much greater liking for the pencil than the burin at that early age. A painter named Barile, more noted for his generosity than for his knowledge of the art, took the young Sarto to instruct him in painting. The lad made great progress, and was soon transferred to the school of Pietro Cosimo, then considered one of the best painters in Italy. Sarto continued to make very steady progress; and formed an intimacy with Franco Bigio, with whom he executed numerous paintings for the public buildings of Florence. He painted a fine fresco for the ducal palace at Poggio a Caiano, and an excellent "Pieta" for the nuns of Lugo. On his return from Rome, whither he had lately gone, he painted a "Holy Family in Repose," a work of great merit; and executed his "Descent of the Holy Ghost," the "Birth of the Virgin," and "Last Supper," for the monastery of Salvi. The story told by Lanzi, of the soldiers being astounded by the latter painting at the siege of Florence in 1529, need not be repeated in the artist's favour. A band of wild soldiers, bent on plunder, could scarcely be expected to have either the patience or taste necessary for estimating such a sublime work of art. Yet painting, probably, like the music which Orpheus drew from his lyre, has charms capable of fascinating alike the wild savage and the lettered Roman. Sarto was afterwards engaged on a "Dead Christ" for Francis I., King of France, when that monarch gave him a most regal invitation to his court. Andrea went to Paris, and was feasted and robed in great magnificence, when suddenly, on the receipt of a letter from his wife, a woman who possessed the single merit of great personal attractions, he immediately left for Florence, with the intention of procuring pictures for the king, by whom he was entrusted with a considerable sum for that purpose. Notwithstanding his solemn pledge to return again to Paris, the artist spent his time and squandered away the king's money. Sunk in poverty and despondency, filled with public and domestic wretchedness, abandoned by his wife and all his former associates, he died of the plague in 1530, in his forty-second year. Bryan makes his death occur much
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later. Thus ended the career of one who was, in the words of his pupil Vasari, "the most faultless painter of the Florentines, for perfectly understanding the principles of chiaroscuro, for representing the indistinctness of objects in shadow, and for painting with a sweetness truly natural."