e is no need to speak, because it was the work of a
lad, nor would I touch on it, save that it is dear to me to remember
still these first beginnings and many upward steps of my apprenticeship
in the arts. Enough that that lord and others gave me to believe that
there was in it a certain something of a good beginning and of a lively
and resolute spirit. And since among other things I had made therein to
please my fancy a lustful Satyr who, standing hidden amid some bushes,
was rejoicing and feasting himself on the sight of Venus and the Graces
nude, that so pleased the Cardinal that he had me clothed anew from head
to foot, and then gave orders that I should paint in a larger picture,
likewise in oils, the battle of the Satyrs with the Fauns, Sylvan Gods,
and children, forming a sort of Bacchanal; whereupon, setting to work, I
made the cartoon and then sketched in the canvas in colours, which was
ten braccia long. Having then to depart in the direction of Hungary, the
Cardinal made me known to Pope Clement and left me to the protection of
his Holiness, who gave me into the charge of Signor Jeronimo Montaguto,
his Chamberlain, with letters authorizing that, if I might wish to fly
from the air of Rome that summer, I should be received in Florence by
Duke Alessandro; which it would have been well for me to do, because,
choosing after all to stay in Rome, what with the heat, the air, and my
fatigue, I fell sick in such sort that in order to be restored I was
forced to have myself carried by litter to Arezzo. Finally, however,
being well again, about the 10th of the following December I came to
Florence, where I was received by the above-named Duke with kindly mien,
and shortly afterwards given into the charge of the magnificent M.
Ottaviano de' Medici, who so took me under his protection, that as long
as he lived he treated me always as a son; and his blessed memory I
shall always remember and revere, as of a most affectionate father.
Returning then to my usual studies, I received facilities by means of
that lord to enter at my pleasure into the new sacristy of S. Lorenzo,
where are the works of Michelagnolo, he having gone in those days to
Rome; and so I studied them for some time with much diligence, just as
they were on the ground. Then, setting myself to work, I painted in a
picture of three braccia a Dead Christ carried to the Sepulchre by
Nicodemus, Joseph, and others, and behind them the Maries weeping; which
picture,