Looking closely into the now half-obscured fresco, it would appear that Franciabigio had been employed to place it on the wall, for certain little punctures tracing the outline can be seen, which prove that, diffident of his powers, he had carefully calculated and transferred the work from the original sketch ; while in Andrea's own work, belonging to the same time, which we see in the Servite entrance court,* all is done with freehand, without measurement, and with that masterly power which made him faultless in drawing "II pittore senza errori." The concentration of this composition is remarkable ; there is in it nothing superfluous, but the subject is * St Philip Benizzi series. EARLY YEARS 7 rendered with a directness and force which is char- acteristic of Andrea from the beginning. It was, however, but the first and the least in a series of frescoes which were destined to bring immortal fame to the memory of " the great Florentine draughtsman," as Baldinucci calls him. The little cloister,* dim now, and with paintings in places wholly obliterated by the ravages of time, and the vandalisms of Spanish and French soldiers, was once a veritable sanctuary of art, where the con- summate power and delicate skill of Andrea were to be seen at their best when the Renaissance had