duced many good works in his youth, under the discipline of the said Gobbo, and the works just alluded to are finished with much propriety. This artist has also executed many sculptures for the Certosa of Pavia, more especially at the Tomb of the Counts of Virtu, on the front of the church. From Gio-Jacomo, his nephew Guglielmo[1] acquired the art of the sculptor, and, about the year 1530, he gave the most earnest attention to the copying of Leonardo da Vinci’s works, from which he derived great advantage. Having accompanied his uncle to Genoa, when the latter was invited thither in 1531, to erect the Sepulchre of San Giovanni Battista, he furthermore devoted himself with much zeal to the study of design, under Perino del Vaga, but did not neglect his labours in sculpture, and executed one of the six pedestals to be seen at that Sepulchre in so effective a manner that he was then commissioned to prepare all the rest.
Guglielmo afterwards produced two Angels in marble, which are now in the Compagnia of San Giovanni, and for the Bishop of Servega he made two portraits in marble, with a figure of Moses, larger than life, which was placed in the Church of San Lorenzo. Having subsequently executed a Ceres in marble, which stands over a door of the house of Ansaldo Grimaldi, Guglielmo made a figure of Santa Caterina, the size of life, to go over the Gate of the Cazzuola in that city, with the Three Graces, also in marble, and four Children, which were sent to Flanders, to the Grand Esquire of the Emperor Charles V., accompanied another statue of Ceres, of the size of life. All these works were produced by these artist in six years, and in 1537 he repaired to Rome, where he was warmly recommended to the good ofiices of the Venetian painter. Fra Bastiano del Piombo, by his uncle Giovan-Jacomo, who was the friend of that Frate. Sebastiano then presented Guglielmo to Michelagnolo, as Giovan-Jacomo had begged him to do; and Buonarroti, perceiving that Guglielmo was a spirited and industrious artist, began to conceive an affection for him. He therefore set him first of all to restore certain antiquities in the Casa Farnese, and in these he acquitted himself so well that Michelagnolo put him into the service of the Pope, having previously seen a further specimen of
- ↑ The Life of Guglielmo della Porta will also be found in Baglioni, ut supra.
