y rude and clumsily wrought; whereupon he prayed them to take it out
of his sight and to bring him one by the hand of Donato, declaring that
if they did not take it away he would die in misery, so greatly did he
detest badly wrought works in his own art.

Disciples of the same Andrea were Pietro Perugino and Leonardo da Vinci,
of whom we will speak in the proper place, and Francesco di Simone of
Florence, who made a tomb of marble in the Church of S. Domenico in
Bologna, with many little figures, which appear from the manner to be by
the hand of Andrea, for Messer Alessandro Tartaglia, a doctor of Imola,
and another in S. Pancrazio at Florence, facing the sacristy and one of
the chapels of the church, for the Chevalier Messer Pietro Minerbetti.
Another pupil of Andrea was Agnolo di Polo, who worked with great
mastery in clay, filling the city with works by his hand; and if he had
deigned to apply himself properly to his art, he would have made very
beautiful things. But the one whom he loved more than all the others was
Lorenzo di Credi, who brought his remains from Venice and laid them in
the Church of S. Ambrogio, in the tomb of Ser Michele di Cione, on the
stone of which there are carved the following words:

SER MICHAELIS DE CIONIS, ET SUORUM.

And beside them:

HIC OSSA JACENT ANDREAE VERROCHII, QUI OBIIT
VENETIIS, MCCCCLXXXVIII.

Andrea took much delight in casting in a kind of plaster which would set
hard--that is, the kind that is made of a soft stone which is quarried
in the districts of Volterra and of Siena and in many other parts of
Italy. This stone, when burnt in the fire, and then pounded and mixed
with tepid water, becomes so soft that men can make whatever they please
with it; but afterwards it solidifies and becomes so hard, that it can
be used for moulds for casting whole figures. Andrea, then, was wont to
cast in moulds of this material such natural objects as hands, feet,
knees, legs, arms, and torsi, in order to have them before him and
imitate them with greater convenience. Afterwards, in his time, men
began to cast the heads of those who died--a cheap method; wherefore
there are seen in every house in Florence, over the chimney-pieces,
doors, windows, and cornices, infinite numbers of such portraits, so
well made and so natural that they appear alive. And from that time up
to the present the said custom has been continued, and it still
continues, with great convenience to ourselves,