psum, but of a better quality, for it is
soft when it is worked, and afterwards with time becomes hard. He also
wrought many things in clay at Orleans and made works throughout that
whole kingdom, acquiring fame and very great wealth. After these works,
hearing that he had no relative left in Florence save his brother Luca,
and being himself rich and alone in the service of King Francis, he
summoned his brother to join him in those parts, in order to leave him
in credit and good circumstances, but it fell out otherwise, for in a
short time Luca died there, and Girolamo once more found himself alone
and without any of his kin; wherefore he resolved to return, in order to
enjoy in his own country the riches that his labour and sweat had
brought him, and also to leave therein some memorial of himself, and he
was settling down to live in Florence in the year 1553, when he was
forced to change his mind, as it were, for he saw that Duke Cosimo, by
whom he was hoping to be honourably employed, was occupied with the war
in Siena; whereupon he returned to die in France. And not only did his
house remain closed and his family become extinct, but art was deprived
of the true method of making glazed work, for the reason that, although
there have been some after them who have practised that sort of
sculpture, nevertheless they have all failed by a great measure to
attain to the excellence of the elder Luca, Andrea, and the others of
that family. Wherefore, if I have spoken on this subject at greater
length, perchance, than it appeared to be necessary, let no man blame
me, seeing that the fact that Luca discovered this new form of
sculpture--which, to my knowledge, the ancient Romans did not have--made
it necessary to discourse thereon, as I have done, at some length. And
if, after the Life of the elder Luca, I have given some brief account of
his descendants, who have lived even to our own day, I have done this in
order not to have to return to this subject another time.

[Illustration: THE ANNUNCIATION

(_After_ Andrea della Robbia. _La Verna_)

_Alinari_]

Luca, then, while passing from one method of work to another, from
marble to bronze, and from bronze to clay, did this not by reason of
laziness or because he was, as many are, capricious, unstable, and
discontented with his art, but because he felt himself drawn by nature
to new things and by necessity to an exercise according to his taste,
both less fatiguing and more prof