Giovan Maria Benintendi, about this same time, had adorned an antechamber in his house with many pictures by the hands of various able men; and after the work executed for Borgherini, incited by hearing Jacopo da Pontormo very highly praised, he caused a picture to be painted by him with the Adoration of the Magi, who went to Bethlehem to see Christ; which work, since Jacopo devoted to it much study and diligence, proved to be well varied and beautiful in the heads and in every other part, and to be truly worthy of all praise. Afterwards he executed for Messer Goro da Pistoia, then Secretary to the Medici, a picture with the portrait of the Magnificent Cosimo de' Medici, the elder, from the knees upwards, which is indeed worthy to be extolled; and this portrait is now in the house of Messer Ottaviano de' Medici, in the possession of his son, Messer Alessandro, a young man--besides the distinction and nobility of his blood--of most upright character, well lettered, and the worthy son of the Magnificent Ottaviano and of Madonna Francesca, the daughter of Jacopo Salviati and the maternal aunt of the Lord Duke Cosimo.
By means of this work, and particularly this head of Cosimo, Pontormo became the friend of Messer Ottaviano; and the Great Hall at Poggio a Caiano having then to be painted, there were given to him to paint the two ends where the round openings are that give light--that is, the windows--from the vaulting down to the floor. Whereupon, desiring to do himself honour even beyond his wont, both from regard for the place and from emulation of the other painters who were working there, he set himself to study with such diligence, that he overshot the mark, for the reason that, destroying and doing over again every day what he had done the day before, he racked his brains in such a manner that it was a tragedy; but all the time he was always making new discoveries, which brought credit to himself and beauty to the work. Thus, having to execute a Vertumnus with his husbandmen, he painted a peasant seated with a vine-pruner in his hand, which is so beautiful and so well done that it is a very rare thing, even as certain children that are there are lifelike and natural beyond all belief. On the other side he painted Pomona and Diana, with other Goddesses, enveloping them perhaps too abundantly with draperies. However, the work as a whole is beautiful and much extolled; but while it was being executed Leo was overtaken by death, and so it remained unfinished, like many other similar works at Rome, Florence, Loreto, and other places; nay, the whole world was left poor, being robbed of the true Mæcenas of men of talent.