ich houses were thrown to the ground together with the
rest by the people. That circumstance so grieved him, that, returning in
the year 1540 to revisit his country, when he was within a quarter of a
mile of Florence he put the hood of his cloak over his head, covering
his eyes, in order that, in entering by that gate, he might not see the
suburb and his own houses all pulled down. Wherefore the guards at the
gate, seeing him thus muffled up, asked him what that meant, and, having
heard from him why he had so covered his face, they laughed at him.
Lorenzo, after being a few months in Florence, returned to France,
taking his mother with him; and there he still lives and labours.

FRA GIOVANNI AGNOLO MONTORSOLI

LIFE OF FRA GIOVANNI AGNOLO MONTORSOLI

SCULPTOR

To one Michele d'Agnolo of Poggibonzi, in the village of Montorsoli,
which is three miles distant from Florence on the road to Bologna, where
he had a good farm of some size, there was born a male child, to whom he
gave the name of his father, Agnolo. That child, growing up, and having
an inclination for design, as could be readily seen, was placed by his
father, according to the advice of friends, to learn stone-cutting under
some masters who worked at the quarries of Fiesole, almost opposite to
Montorsoli. Agnolo continuing to ply the chisel with those masters, in
company with Francesco del Tadda, who was then a lad, and with others,
not many months had passed before he knew very well how to handle the
tools and to execute many kinds of work in that profession. Having then
contracted a friendship by means of Francesco del Tadda with Maestro
Andrea, a sculptor of Fiesole, the genius of the child so pleased that
master, that he conceived an affection for him, and began to teach him;
and thus he kept him in his workshop for three years. After which time,
his father Michele being dead, Agnolo went off in company with other
young stone-cutters to Rome, where, having been set to work on the
building of S. Pietro, he carved some of those rosettes that are in the
great cornices which encircle the interior of that temple, with much
profit to himself and a good salary. Having then departed from Rome, I
know not why, he placed himself in Perugia with a master stone-cutter,
who at the end of a year left him in charge of all his works. But,
recognizing that to stay at Perugia was not the life for him, and that
he was not learning, he went off, when the opport