Andrea Del Sarto is a curious instance of the vital power of art, which, like a flower forcing its way to the light through walls or rocks, will find expression in spite of obstacles.

Andrea the painter, "senza errori," was an artist in spite of lowering home influences, of want of encouragement in his patrons—for his greatest works only brought the smallest remuneration—and even in spite of his own nature, which was material, wanting in high aims, and deficient in ideality; yet his name lives for ever as a great master, and his works rank close to those of the leaders of the Renaissance.

In looking at them one sighs even in the midst of admiration, thinking that if the hand which produced them had been guided by a spark of divine genius instead of the finest talent, what glorious works they would have been! The truth is that Andrea's was a receptive, rather than an original and productive mind. His art was more imitative than spontaneous, and this forms perhaps the difference between talent and genius. The art of his time sunk into his mind, and was reproduced. He lived precisely at the time of the culmination of art, when all the highest masters were bringing forth their grandest works; therefore he could not do otherwise than to follow the best examples.

He gathered the experience of all—the force of Michelangelo, the handling of Leonardo, the sentiment of Raphael, so blending them as to form a style seemingly his own, and in execution following closely on their excellence.

In Giotto's or Masaccio's case the master created the art; in Andrea's it was the art of the age which made the artist.

The question of Andrea del Sarto's birth is a mooted one. Biadi dates it 1478, but the register he quotes is both vague and doubtful. He also tells a curious story of his Flemish origin. Signor Milanesi has deduced, from the archives of Florence, an authentic pedigree from which we learn that his remote ancestors were peasants, first at Buiano, near Fiesole, and later at S. Ilario, near Montereggi. His grandfather, Francesco, being a linen weaver, came to live nearer Florence; his father, Agnolo, son of Francesco, followed the trade of a tailor—hence Andrea's sobriquet, "del Sarto"—he took a house in Via Gualfonda, in Florence, about 1487, with his wife Constanza, and here Andrea was born, he being the eldest of a family of five—three girls and two boys. From the tax papers of a few years later it is proved that Andrea was born in 1487. His full name is Andrea d'Agnolo di Francesco. It is by mistake that he has been called Vannucchi.

His parents were young, his father being only twenty-seven years of age at Andrea's birth. They lived at that time in Val Fonda, where Albertinelli had his shop, but in 1504 they removed to the popolo, or parish, of S. Paolo. Boys were not allowed to be idle in those days, but were apprenticed at an early age; thus Andrea, like most artists of his time, was bound to a goldsmith. It would be interesting to investigate the great influence of the guild of goldsmiths on the art of the Renaissance. The reason why youths who showed a talent for design were entered in that guild is easy to assign—it was one of the "greater" guilds, that of the painters being a lesser one, and merged in the "Arte degli Speziali." At seven years old he left the school where he had learned to read and write, and entered his very youthful apprenticeship; but he showed so much more aptitude for the designing than for the executive part of his profession that Giovanni Barile, who frequented the bottega, was induced to counsel his being trained especially as a painter, offering himself as instructor. If Andrea, a contadino by birth, an artisan by education, was not originally of the most refined nature, his artistic training did not go far towards refining him. Giovanni Barile was a coarse painter and a rough man; he had, however, generosity enough to see that the boy was worthy of better teaching, and got him entered in the bottega of Piero di Cosimo, who had attained a good rank as a colourist, his eccentricities possibly adding to his reputation.

Accordingly in 1498, Andrea being then eleven years of age, a life of earnest study began. Piero di Cosimo, odd and misanthropic as he was, had yet a true appreciation of talent, and showed an earnest interest in his pupil, giving him—with plenty of queer treatment—a thorough training. "He was not allowed to make a line which was not perfect" [Footnote: Rosini, Storia della Pittura, chap. xvii. p. 40.] while in Piero's school. But excellent as his art teaching may have been, the boy's morale could not have been raised more here than under the rough but good-natured Barile. We have seen Piero di Cosimo in his youth, the serious, absent young man, who never joked with his juniors in Cosimo Roselli's shop; we see him now, with his youthful oddities hardened into eccentricities, and his reserve deepened to misanthropy. No woman's hand softened and refined his house, no cleansing broom was allowed within his door, and no gardener's hand cleared the weeds or pruned the vines in his garden. He so believed in nature unassisted that he took his meals without the intervention of a cook. When the fire was lighted to boil his size or glue he would cook fifty or sixty eggs and set them apart in a basket, to which he had recourse when the pangs of hunger compelled him. All this was morally very bad for a boy so young. And then woe betide the poor little fellow if he whistled, sneezed, or made any other noise! his nervous master would be out of temper for a day afterwards. On wet days Piero was merrier, for he would watch the drops splashing into the pools, and laugh as if they were fairies. Sometimes he would take Andrea for a walk, and all at once stop and gaze at a heap of rubbish, or mark of damp on a lichened wall, picturing all kinds of monsters and weird scenes in its discolourations.

No doubt he was literally carrying out Leonardo da Vinci's advice, headed, in his treatise, "A new Art of Invention." "Look at some old wall covered with dirt, or the odd appearance of some old streaked stones; you may discover several things like landscapes, battles, clouds, humorous faces, &c., to furnish the mind with new designs." [Footnote: Leonardo da Vinci, Treatise on Painting.] Cosimo's mind being fantastic, the pictures he saw were incomparably grotesque. He delighted in drawing sea monsters, dragons, wonderful adventures, and heathen scenes; in fact the boy could have learned neither Christian art nor manners from him. He learned how to use his brush, however, and, leaving Piero to his minotaurs and dragons, went off at every spare hour to study at more congenial shrines. He copied Masaccio at the Brancacci Chapel, and drew so earnestly from the cartoons in the Hall of the Pope that his achievements reached the ears of Piero himself, who was not sorry that his pupil surpassed the rest, and gave him more time for study away from the bottega. Rosini tells us that "Fra Bartolommeo taught him the first steps." [Footnote: Storia della Pittura, chap, xxvii. p. 2.] The influence of the Frate may have reached him in two ways. It is not unlikely that Piero di Cosimo kept up an interest in his old fellow-pupil; and then again, as Andrea lived in Val Fonda, it is probable he often visited Albertinelli's studio in that street, and the friendship with Francia Bigio began before the cartoons of Michelangelo ripened there.

The evidence of style goes to show that the works of Albertinelli and Fra Bartolommeo influenced him more than those of Piero. Yet though his sphere was devotional, it was "impelled more by a material sense of beauty than by the deep religious feeling which inspired the Frate."

As time went on the youth in strange old Piero's studio became more famous than his master, and felt that he could do greater things away from the stiff method which cramped him, and the whimsicalities which annoyed him. His friend, Francia Bigio, Mariotto's pupil, having just then lost his master, who was giving more attention to his father-in-law's business of innkeeper than his own, was willing to enter into partnership, and the two youths began life together in 1509 or 1510, in a room near the Piazza del Grano, in the first house in Via del Moro, which still remains in its old state.

The first bit of patronage recorded is the commission for the frescoes in the Scalzo; that they had work before is proved by the words in the contract of the Barefoot Friars, "dettero ad Andrea pittore celeberrimo il dipingere nel Chiosto." The "celebrated" presupposes works already done.

The Scalzo was a name given to the "Compagnia dei Disciplinati di S. Giovanni Battista," because they went barefoot when they carried the cross in their processions. They lived in a convent in Via Larga (now Cavour), opposite San Marco. A new cloister had been erected there—an elegant little cortile, thirty-eight feet by thirty-two, adorned with lovely Corinthian pillars—and the Brethren were anxious to fill the lunettes of the arches with frescoes at the least possible expense, wisely judging that a young artist on his way to fame would be the best to employ.

The frescoes, of which there would be twelve large, and four small ones in the upright spaces by the doors, were to be done in "terretta," or brown earth, and to be paid fifty-six lire (eight scudi) for the large, and twenty-one lire (three scudi) each for the lesser frescoes. The small ones were four figures of the Virtues, Faith, Hope, Justice, and Charity. Hope is exquisitely expressed, and Charity a charming group, the children most tenderly drawn. The subjects, though not all finished till many years later, stand now in the following order; the second row of figures, with the dates, show the order in which they were painted:—

Of these, No. 6 was the first executed, and it is probable that Francia Bigio assisted him, for it has not the finished drawing nor careful handling of any of Andrea's other frescoes. Possibly this is the cause of the partners never working together afterwards, each taking his own subjects and signing his own name. The composition, in the Baptism of Christ, is not original, being very similar to that of Verocchio's, especially in the two angels kneeling on the left bank; the landscape and figures, however, are far in advance of that master.

It will be well to speak of the whole set of frescoes in this place, for although they belong to different times and styles, they are a complete work, and might be taken almost as an epitome of Andrea's career; from the one above mentioned in which Piero de Cosimo's influence is apparent, to the Nos. 7 and 8, which very nearly approach Michelangelo's power and freedom.

In No. 1 the expression of muteness about the mouth of Zacharias, as he stands by the altar, is wonderfully given; you feel sure he could not speak if he would. The other figures are superfluous to the motive, though adding grandeur to the work as a whole.

In composition Andrea differs widely from Fra Bartolommeo. The latter delighted in building up a single form, every figure in the whole picture adding its hue and weight to perfect this pyramid or circle. Andrea spreads his figures more widely; he likes a double composition, dividing his pictures into two separate groups, connected by one central figure, or divided entirely. This is seen in Nos. 3, 10 and 12, which are all double groupings, the last completely divided in the centre by a table and an archway behind it. Nos. 7 and 9 are pyramidal compositions. The Preaching of S. John is one of the best works, and shows his most forcible style. S. John on a rock stands like a pillar in the centre, the hearers are dressed in the "lucco" (a Florentine cloak of the 15th century), the grouping following the lines of the landscape. At the back Jesus kneels on a rising ground. Vasari says the figures are from Albrecht DÜrer, whose works had made a great impression on the southern world of art; but it is more probable that they only show his influence, for the dress and style are Florentine.

No. 8, the Baptism of the Gentiles, is another of his best style, and is, in the drawing of the nude figures, almost Michelangelesque in power. This is one of his favourite "echo" subjects, a group in the background of John answering the Pharisees forming an echo to the principal subject. The muscular life of the spirited crowd of nude figures is beautifully contrasted by the graceful draped forms in the background. One of the baptized is the same child whom he had modelled in the Madonna of S. Francisco.

Nos. 4 and 5 are by Francia Bigio, and were done during Andrea's absence in France, showing that he had so far learned from his friend as almost to rival him in power. The subjects, although not scriptural, are conjecturally true.

In the Zacharias blessing John before he goes to the Desert, the sitting figure of S. Elizabeth and the kneeling one of the child are very lovely; the action of Zacharias is not so well defined, the great force in the uplifted arm betokens anger more than blessing. The grouping follows the lines of a flight of steps in the background, and is triangular.

The same form of composition is apparent in the next group (No. 5), only the lines form an angle receding from the one just mentioned. The Virgin is charmingly posed and draped, the children less pleasing.

This elegant little cloister is a true shrine of art, although the frescoes are all in monochrome. So much were they admired at the time, that an order was issued prohibiting artists to copy them without the permission of Duke Cosimo. Cardinal Carlo de' Medici had them covered with curtains, [Footnote: Richa, Delle Chiese] but, in spite of care, they are very much injured, the under parts almost lost. The precaution of covering the cloister with a glass roof has only been taken in modern times, and too late.

Andrea's next patrons were the Eremite monks of S. Agostino, at San Gallo, who ordered of him two pictures for their church. In 1511 he painted Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen, and an Annunciation in 1512. The former is said to have had much softness and delicacy, the latter is to be seen in the Hall of Mars at the Pitti, and is a very pleasing picture. The Virgin kneels at her prayer desk, S. Joseph behind her—a rather unusual rendering of the subject—her attitude is graceful and decorous, the angel calm and gentle, floats in mid air, two other angels stand on the left. The colouring is varied in the extreme, and the lights well defined.

These two pictures, and the Disputa, painted later, were removed to the church of S. Jacopo tra Fossi, when the convent was demolished in 1529. They were still there in 1677, when Bocchi wrote his Bellezze di Firenze, but the Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen is said to be now in the church of the Covoni in the Casentino.