ins and remains of the Palace of Titus, in the hope of finding
figures, certain rooms were discovered, completely buried under the
ground, which were full of little grotesques, small figures, and scenes,
with other ornaments of stucco in low-relief. Whereupon, Giovanni going
with Raffaello, who was taken to see them, they were struck with
amazement, both the one and the other, at the freshness, beauty, and
excellence of those works, for it appeared to them an extraordinary
thing that they had been preserved for so long a time; but it was no
great marvel, for they had not been open or exposed to the air, which is
wont in time, through the changes of the seasons, to consume all things.
These grotesques--which were called grotesques from their having been
discovered in the underground grottoes--executed with so much design,
with fantasies so varied and so bizarre, with their delicate ornaments
of stucco divided by various fields of colour, and with their little
scenes so pleasing and beautiful, entered so deeply into the heart and
mind of Giovanni, that, having devoted himself to the study of them, he
was not content to draw and copy them merely once or twice; and he
succeeded in executing them with facility and grace, lacking nothing
save a knowledge of the method of making the stucco on which the
grotesques were wrought. Now many before him, as has been related, had
exercised their wits on this, but had discovered nothing save the method
of making the stucco, by means of fire, with gypsum, lime, colophony,
wax, and pounded brick, and of overlaying it with gold; and they had not
found the true method of making stucco similar to that which had been
discovered in those ancient chambers and grottoes. But at that time
works were being executed in lime and pozzolana, as was related in the
Life of Bramante, for the arches and the tribune at the back in S.
Pietro, all the ornaments of foliage, with the ovoli and other members,
being cast in moulds of clay, and Giovanni, after considering that
method of working with lime and pozzolana, began to try if he could
succeed in making figures in low-relief; and so, pursuing his
experiments, he contrived to make them as he desired in every part, save
that the outer surface did not come out with the delicacy and finish
that the ancient works possessed, nor yet so white. On which account he
began to think that it might be necessary to mix with the white lime of
travertine, in place of pozzol