the Misericordia, a young man was
entrusted to him to be taught the art of sculpture, the son of Antonio
di Jacopo Tatti, whom Nature had endowed with a great genius, so that
he gave much grace to the things that he did in relief. Whereupon
Andrea, having recognized how excellent in sculpture the young man was
destined to become, did not fail to teach him with all possible care
all those things which might make him known as his disciple. And so,
loving him very dearly, and doing his best for him with much
affection, and being loved by the young man with equal tenderness,
people judged that the pupil would not only become as excellent as his
master, but would by a great measure surpass him. And such were the
reciprocal friendliness and love between these two, as it were between
father and son, that Jacopo in those early years began to be called no
longer Tatti, but Sansovino, and so he has always been, and always
will be.

Now, Jacopo beginning to exercise his hand, he was so assisted by
Nature in the things that he did, that, although at times he did not
use much study and diligence in his work, nevertheless in what he did
there could be seen facility, sweetness, grace, and a certain delicacy
very pleasing to the eyes of craftsmen, insomuch that his every
sketch, rough study, and model has always had a movement and a
boldness that Nature is wont to give to but few sculptors. Moreover,
the friendship and intercourse that Andrea del Sarto and Jacopo
Sansovino had with each other in their childhood, and then in their
youth, assisted not a little both the one and the other, for they
followed the same manner in design and had the same grace in
execution, one in painting and the other in sculpture, and, conferring
together on the problems of art, and Jacopo making models of figures
for Andrea, they gave one another very great assistance. And that this
is true a proof is that in the altar-piece of S. Francesco, belonging
to the Nuns of the Via Pentolini, there is a S. John the Evangelist
which was copied from a most beautiful model in clay that Sansovino
made in those days in competition with Baccio da Montelupo; for the
Guild of Por Santa Maria wished to have a bronze statue of four
braccia made for a niche at the corner of Orsanmichele, opposite to
the Wool-Shearers, for which Jacopo made a more beautiful model in
clay than Baccio, but nevertheless it was allotted to Montelupo, from
his being an older master, rather than t