The Pitti Palace possesses a curious specimen of his work,
the 11,000 martyrs crucified in a wood in the persecution under the
Emperor Diocletian.
He rose to renown as a portrait painter, but lost patronage in later
year by his capricious behaviour, refusing to work except for whom and
when he pleased. In company with his favourite pupil, Bronzino, he did
the frescoes in the Loggie of the Medici villa at Careggi; one Loggia
was soon completed, to the great delight of the Duke, but Jacopo shut
himself up in the second and allowed no one to see what he was doing
for five years; when at length he uncovered the frescoes general
disappointment was the result. He pursued much the same line of conduct
in the frescoes of the roof of the Medici Chapel in San Lorenzo. He
kept the chapel closed with walls and planks for eleven years, no one
seeing his progress except some young men who removed one of the
rosettes from the ceiling to peep in on him, but he discovered their
plan, and closed the holes more assiduously than ever. The composition
is as confused as it is diffusive; he tried to embody the whole
teaching of the Bible, but becoming overwhelmed with the vastness of
his subject, fell short even of the excellence of his own previous
works.
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