DANIELE DE VOLTERRA (1509-1566) was the best scholar of Michael Angelo. His principal pictures are the "Descent from the Cross," in the Church of Trinità di Monti, in Rome, and the "Massacre of the Innocents," in the Uffizi Gallery; both are celebrated works.
The next important Florentine painter was ANDREA DEL SARTO (1488-1530). His family name was Vannucchi; but because his father was a tailor, the Italian term for one of his trade, _un sarto_, came to be used for the son. Early in life Andrea was a goldsmith, as were so many artists; but, when he was able to study painting under Pietro di Cosimo, he became devoted to it, and soon developed his own style, which was very soft and pleasing. His pictures cannot be called great works of art, but they are favorites with a large number of people. He succeeded in fresco-painting, and decorated several buildings in Florence, among them the Scalzo, which was a place where the Barefooted Friars held their meetings, and was named from them, as they are called _Scalzi_. These frescoes are now much injured; but they are thought his best works of this kind.
Probably Andrea del Sarto would have come to be a better painter if he had been a happier man. His wife, of whom he was very fond, was a mean, selfish woman who wished only to make a great show, and did not value her husband's talents except for the money which they brought him. She even influenced him to desert his parents, to whom he had ever been a dutiful son. About 1518 Francis I., king of France, invited Andrea to Paris to execute some works for him. The painter went, and was well established there and very popular, when his wife insisted that he should return to Florence. Francis I. was very unwilling to spare him, but Andrea dared not refuse to go to his wife; so he solemnly took an oath to return to Paris and bring his wife, so that he could remain as long as pleased the king, and then that sovereign consented. Francis also gave the artist a large sum of money to buy for him all sorts of beautiful objects.
When Andrea reached Florence his wife refused to go to France, and persuaded him to give her the king's money. She soon spent it, and Andrea, who lived ten years more, was very unhappy, while the king never forgave him, and to this day this wretched story must be told, and continues the remembrance of his dishonesty. After all he had sacrificed for his wife, when he became very ill, in 1530, of some contagious disease, she deserted him. He died alone, and with no prayer or funeral was buried in the Convent of the Nunziata, where he had painted some of his frescoes.