m a cousin of his own called Diacceto, a young goldsmith, who
had a passing good knowledge of design, in that he not only taught him
all that he knew, but also furnished him with many drawings by various
able men, over which, without telling his father, Francesco practised
day and night with extraordinary zeal. And Domenico Naldini, having
become aware of this, first examined the boy well, and then prevailed
upon his father, Michelagnolo, to place him in his uncle's shop to learn
the goldsmith's art; by reason of which opportunity for design Francesco
in a few months made so much proficience, that everyone was astonished.

In those days a company of young goldsmiths and painters used to
assemble together at times and go throughout Florence on feast-days
drawing the most famous works, and not one of them laboured more or with
greater love than did Francesco. The young men of that company were
Nanni di Prospero delle Corniole, the goldsmith Francesco di Girolamo
dal Prato, Nannoccio da San Giorgio, and many other lads who afterwards
became able men in their professions.

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF A MAN

(_After the panel by =Francesco Salviati [Francesco de' Rossi]=.
Florence: Uffizi, 1256_)

_Alinari_]

At this time Francesco and Giorgio Vasari, both being still boys, became
fast friends, and in the following manner. In the year 1523, Silvio
Passerini, Cardinal of Cortona, passing through Arezzo as the Legate of
Pope Clement VII, Antonio Vasari, his kinsman, took Giorgio, his eldest
son, to make his reverence to the Cardinal. And the Cardinal, finding
that the boy, who at that time was not more than nine years of age, had
been so well grounded in his first letters by the diligence of M.
Antonio da Saccone and of Messer Giovanni Pollastra, an excellent poet
of Arezzo, that he knew by heart a great part of the _AEneid_ of Virgil,
which he was pleased to hear him recite, and that he had learned to draw
from Guglielmo da Marcilla, the French painter--the Cardinal, I say,
ordained that Antonio should himself take the boy to Florence. There
Giorgio was settled in the house of M. Niccolo Vespucci, Knight of
Rhodes, who lived on the abutment of the Ponte Vecchio, above the Church
of the Sepolcro, and was placed with Michelagnolo Buonarroti; and this
circumstance came to the knowledge of Francesco, who was then living in
the Chiasso di Messer Bivigliano, where his father rented a great house
that faced on the Vacchereccia,