THE SCULPTOR, FRA GIOVANN’AGNOLO MONTORSOLI.
[born 1428—died 1563-4.]
To a certain Michele, the son of Agnolo, of Poggibonzi, and at a village called Montorsoli, which is situate about three miles from Florence on the road to Bologna, where Michele had a good and tolerably large farm, there was born a male child, to whom he gave the name of his own father and the boy’s grandfather, Agnolo that is to say. The child growing up and evincing a decided inclination for design, he was placed by his father, who acted in pursuance of advice given him by various friends, to learn stone carving with certain masters who were then occupied among the quarries of Fiesole, very nearly opposite to Montorsoli; continuing his labours under these men, therefore, in company with Francesco del Tadda,[1] who was then a youth, and with others, many months had not elapsed before the young Agnolo knew perfectly well how to handle his tools, and executed not a few works proper to that vocation.
Having subsequently, and by means of Del Tadda, become known to Maestro Andrea, a sculptor of Fiesole,[2] the latter was so greatly pleased with the character of the child, that he began to give him instructions; and his affection for the boy increasing, he kept him in his workshop for three years.
About that time Michele, the father of Agnolo, being dead, he set off with other young stone-cutters to Rome, whither many of that calling then repaired; and there, having set himself to work in the building of San Pietro, he carved several of those rosettes which are in the great cornice that passes entirely around the Church, which he did to his great advantage, receiving good pay for the same. Departing afterwards from Rome, I know not why, he engaged himself in Perugia with a master stone-cutter, by whom, at the end of a year, he was entrusted with the care of all the undertakings passing through his hands: but knowing that his continued abode
