which he received to that effect, from the painter Perino del Vaga. Silvio Cosini executed a very fine portrait in marble of the Emperor Charles V., but as he never liked to stay long in one place, and was a man of somewhat unsettled habits, he became weary of doing well in G-enoa, and set himself on the way to proceed into France. He had however hardly arrived at Monsanese before he turned back, and having halted at Milan, he there executed certain historical works in the Cathedral, with some figures and numerous ornaments, all of which added greatly to his credit. In this city Cosini ultimately died, being then in the forty-eighth year of his age.[1]
This artist was a man of much fancy and ingenuity, he showed great ability in all his works, and completed every thing, of whatever kind, to which he laid his hand, with remarkable assiduity. He delighted in the composition of sonnets, which he would then sing to music, composing the same as he proceeded; in his first youth he likewise gave much time to the exercise of arms. Had Silvio Cosini devoted himself with constancy to the study of sculpture and design, he would have had few equals, and as he surpassed his master Andrea Ferruzzi, so would he also, with longer life, have surpassed many others, who have yet obtained the reputation of being excellent masters.
At the same time with Andrea Ferruzzi and Silvio Cosini, there flourished another Fiesolan sculptor, called Cicilia, who was an artist of much ability. The tomb of the Cavalier, Messer Luigi Tornabuoni,[2] which is in the church of San Jacopo in the Campo Corbolini at Florence, is a work of his hand and has been highly commended. It is more particularly to be remarked for the escutcheon of that cavalier, which Cicilia made in the form of a horse’s head, proposing to show, that according to the ancients, the form of the shields we use was originally taken from the head of the horse.
- ↑ In his first edition, Vasari describes this sculptor as “finishing the course of his life in the year 1640, and in the thirty-eighth year of his age.”
- ↑ Luigi Tornabuoni was Grand Prior of Pisa, of the Order of the Jerusalemibes. His tomb still remains in the above named church of San Jacopo.—Ed. Flor. 1832 -8.
