Chap. XVII. ANDREA DEL SARTO. 561 As he brought these frescos to a close, the news of Leo the Tenth’s coming spread through Florence; and unusual efforts were required, considering the shortness of the notice, to get ready the triumphal arches and other decorations with which that event was celebrated. Del Sarto and his friends, Jacopo Sansovino and Rustici, con certed measures with extraordinary decision; and the two first were thus enabled to produce a gigantic model of the front of S. Maria del Fiore, which Leo only wished he could have seen carried out in stone with equal readiness. 1 Resuming his duties at the Scalzo immediately after, he laid the borders round the “Baptism of Christ”, the “Justice”, and the “Sermon”; and at midsummer 1517, he gave the final touches to “S. John baptizing in the desert”, and the “Capture”; both of them animated scenes, full of exuberant strength, and well balanced groups, but slightly mannered in the drawing. 2 In the meanwhile, and in order to vary the monotony of labour at monochromes, he did for S. Francesco of Florence the Virgin and child with S. Francis, S. John Evangelist and two angels, now in the Gallery of the Uffizi. In the young and handsome Virgin seated on a very high pedestal, the study of a good model is as evi dent as that of a coarse one is betrayed in the vulgar realism of the S. Francis. The Evangelist, on the con trary, is full of feeling and of a mild character well deserving praise. Nothing can exceed the harmonious vagueness of the misty tone which bathes and almost ob literates the outlines. For fusion and transparent gaiety of colour, Del Sarto was never more remarkable. But the striking feature here is not so much that the picture is a masterpiece as that we find the painter adapting his means to his subject with astonishing versatility. At the 1 Vas. VIII. 2G7. In the spring of 151G (March 17.) Del Sarto was employed at the funeral of Giu- liano de’ Medici. Vas. IX. 112. 2 See the records in annot. Vas. VIII. 302. 3. and Vasari himself ib. 264. von. hi. 36