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He then hired it on a lease, but on June 15, 1508, the lease of the house was transferred to Sigismondo Martelli. The St. Matthew, now in the courtyard of the Accademia delle Belle Arti, in Florence, is the only work we know of resulting from this commission. The apostle is just emerging from the marble, and shows us Michael Angelo’s method of work.
Legend says, that in order to study the nude for a Christ, she drew from the corpse of a nun which might account for the weak stiffness of her design. Fra Paolo, though there is no record of his having taught her, left her as a legacy the designs and cartoons of Fra Bartolommeo, one of which, the Pieta, she has evidently made use of in the painting in the Belle Arti.
The artists got thirty-five lire for the work, though the record in the archives allows that it was worth more. There is an Assumption in the Belle Arti of Florence, of which the design is Fra Bartolommeo's, but the colouring Fra Paolo's. It was painted for the Dominican monks at Santa Maria del Sasso, near Bibbiena.
If they were removed from their ugly surroundings and placed, say, in the Tribuna of David in the Belle Arti at Florence instead of the plaster casts that represent the master in his own city, they, with the other fragments, such as the Saint Matthew, the Apollo, the Victory, and the other works in the Bargello, would make a gallery of his art even worthy of Michael Angelo.
The same year produced the fine picture now in the Louvre, which was painted for the church of S. Trinita on the commission of Zanobio del Maestro. The nuns of S. Giuliano employed him to paint two pictures, both of which are now in the Belle Arti. One is an altarpiece; the Madonna enthroned, with the Divine Child in her arms.
If it is difficult to speak with justice and a sense of proportion of the Accademia delle Belle Arti, how may I hope to succeed with the Uffizi Gallery, where the pictures are infinitely more varied and numerous.
Where the masters of Florence placed it, under the direction of its maker, Michelangelo's great white David stood for more than three centuries uncovered, open to all injuries of frost and rain, and to the violence of citizens, until, for the better preservation of this masterpiece of modern art, it was removed in 1873 to a hall of the Accademia delle Belle Arti.
She slept a deep, peaceful sleep after that, nor did her mind misgive her when she awoke again, to find that those threatening clouds had taken possession of the sky, and were drenching the world with rain. They went to the Belle Arti that morning, Pauline and May and Uncle Dan, their faithful squire.
The following is the only existing document in Giorgione's own handwriting. It was published by Molmenti in the Bollettino delle Arti, anno ii. No. 2, and reprinted by Conti, p. 50:
In order to realize in the slightest degree the true work of these old masters, one must know in what condition the art was before their time; or rather, that there was no art. So we will first go to the Accademia delle Belle Arti, or Academy, as we will call it, and from there to the church, Santa Maria Novella.
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