himself
to sculpture, went off to Carrara to have the marble quarried both for
the S. Michael and for the statues that he was to make for the chapel in
S. Pietro a Montorio. With that occasion, coming to see Florence and the
works that Vasari was executing in the Palace for the Duke, and the
other works in that city, he received many courtesies from his
innumerable friends, and in particular from Vasari himself, to whom
Buonarroti had recommended him by letter. Abiding in Florence, then, and
perceiving how much the Lord Duke delighted in all the arts of design,
Daniello was seized with a desire to attach himself to the service of
his most illustrious Excellency. Many means being therefore employed,
the Lord Duke replied to those who were recommending him that he should
be introduced by Vasari, and so it was done; and Daniello offering
himself as the servant of his Excellency, the Duke answered graciously
that he accepted him most willingly, and that after he had fulfilled the
engagements that he had in Rome, he should come when he pleased, and he
would be received very gladly.

Daniello stayed all that summer in Florence, where Giorgio lodged him in
the house of Simon Botti, who was much his friend. There, during that
time, he cast in gesso nearly all the figures of marble by the hand of
Michelagnolo that are in the new sacristy of S. Lorenzo; and for the
Fleming Michael Fugger he made a Leda, which was a very beautiful
figure. He then went to Carrara, and from there, having sent the marble
that he desired in the direction of Rome, he returned once again to
Florence, for the following reason. Daniello had brought with him, when
he first came from Rome to Florence, a young disciple of his own called
Orazio Pianetti, a talented and very gentle youth; but no sooner had he
arrived in Florence, whatever may have been the reason, than he died.
At which feeling infinite grief and sorrow, Daniello, as one who much
loved the young man for his fine qualities, and was not able to show his
affection for him in any other way, returning that last time to
Florence, made a portrait of him in marble from the breast upwards,
which he copied excellently well from one moulded from his dead body.
And when it was finished, he placed it with an epitaph in the Church of
S. Michele Berteldi on the Piazza degli Antinori; in which Daniello
proved himself, by that truly loving office, to be a man of rare
goodness, and a different sort of friend t