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Fra Bartolommeo was sent, when nine years old, into the workshop of Cosimo Rosselli, where he began his artist's life by colour-grinding, sweeping out the shop, and errand-running. It was in Cosimo's bottega that he made acquaintance with Mariotto Albertinelli, who became his intimate friend and fellow-worker.
Mariotto, very much cast down, bethought himself of a friend who never failed him, and whose love was not affected by party; and, returning to the house of Baccio, he set to work, most likely in a renewed spirit of confidence in the comrade who stood by him when the princes in whom he trusted failed him.
This work brought Mariotto praise and honour among craftsmen, but by no means as much profit as he hoped to gain from his patrons in return for his labours, since a dispute arose between him and those who had commissioned him to paint it. But Pietro Perugino, then an old man, Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, and Francesco Granacci valued it, and settled the price of the work by common consent.
In addition to these works, that garden was full of torsi of men and women, which were a school not only for Mariotto, but for all the sculptors and painters of his time. A good part of these are now in the guardaroba of Duke Cosimo, and others, such as the two torsi of Marsyas, the heads over the windows, and those of the Emperors over the doors, are still in the same place.
These works, of which the subjects are not known, passed afterwards into the possession of Casar Borgia. She also sat to Mariotto for her own portrait. It is easily imagined how elated the excitable youth became at this notice from the mother of the magnificent Lorenzo.
Such, indeed, was the brotherly friendship between them, that when Baccio took his leave of Cosimo, in order to practise his art as a master by himself, Mariotto went off with him; whereupon they lived for a long time, both one and the other, at the Porta a S. Piero Gattolini, executing many works in company.
Mariotto Albertinelli, the closest and most intimate friend of Fra Bartolommeo his other self, one might call him, not only on account of the constant connection and intercourse between them, but also through their similarity of manner during the period when Mariotto gave proper attention to art was the son of Biagio di Bindo Albertinelli.
Sometimes Madonna Alfonsina, the mother of Lorenzo, and widow of Piero, walked here, and she also took an interest in the studies of the youths. Mariotto especially attracted her by his talent and zeal. She commissioned him to paint some pictures for her to send as a present to her own family, the Orsini of Rome.
But Baccio's dearest friend in the studio was a boy nearly his own age, Mariotto Albertinelli, son of Biagio di Bindo, born October 13, 1474. He had experienced the common lot of young artists in those days, and had been apprenticed to a gold-beater, but preferred the profession of painter.
This work was painted out and painted in again many times by Mariotto before he could bring it to completion.
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