his coffers and embarked with them on
board ship, he set off for Hungary. There, after doing obeisance to that
King, by whom he was received most graciously, he sent for the said
coffers and had them unpacked in the presence of the monarch, who was
very eager to see them; whereupon he saw that the damp from the water
and the exhalations from the sea had so softened the glue, that, on the
opening of the waxed cloths, almost all the pieces which had been
attached to the coffers fell to the ground. Whether Benedetto,
therefore, in the presence of so many nobles, stood in dumb amazement,
everyone may judge for himself. However, putting the work together as
well as he was able, he contrived to leave the King well enough
satisfied; but in spite of this he took an aversion to that craft and
could no longer endure it, through the shame that it had brought upon
him.

And so, casting off all timidity, he devoted himself to sculpture, in
which art he had already worked at Loreto while living with his uncle
Giuliano, making a lavatory with certain angels of marble for the
sacristy. Labouring at this art, before he left Hungary he gave that
King to know that if he had been put to shame at the beginning, the
fault had lain with that craft, which was a mean one, and not with his
intellect, which was rare and exalted. Having therefore made in those
parts certain works both in clay and in marble, which gave great
pleasure to that King, he returned to Florence; and he had no sooner
arrived there than he was commissioned by the Signori to make the marble
ornament for the door of their Audience Chamber. For this he made some
boys supporting with their arms certain festoons, all very beautiful;
but the most beautiful part of the work was the figure in the middle,
two braccia in height, of a young S. John, which is held to be a thing
of rare excellence. And to the end that the whole work might be by his
own hand, he made by himself the wood-work that closes the said door,
and executed a figure with inlaid woods on either part of it, that is,
Dante on one and Petrarca on the other; which two figures are enough to
show to any man who may have seen no other work of that kind by the hand
of Benedetto, how rare and excellent a master he was of that craft. This
Audience Chamber has been painted in our own day by Francesco Salviati
at the command of the Lord Duke Cosimo, as will be told in the proper
place.

[Illustration: PULPIT IN S. CROCE, FLO