To-day we are so
accustomed to the idea of the professional attitude to art that we can
accept it in Andrea without concern. Not that other and earlier artists
were unconcerned with the aspect of payments. The history of Italian
art is full of quarrels and bickerings about prices, the calling in of
referees to decide between patron and painter, demands and refusals of
payment. Even the unworldly Fra Bartolommeo was the centre of such
quarrels, and although his vow of poverty forbade him to receive money
for his work, the order to which he belonged stood out firmly for the
_scudi_ which the Frate's pictures brought them. In justice to
Andrea it must be added that this was not the only motive for his
activities; it was not without cause that the men of his time called
him "_senza errori_," the faultless painter; and the production of
a vast quantity of his work rather than good prices for individual
pictures made his art pay to the extent it did. A pot-boiler in
masterpieces, his works have place in every gallery of importance, and
he himself stands very close to the three greatest; men of the
Renaissance.
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