ia, a Neptune and a Mars, signifying the power that is
exercised both on land and on sea by that most illustrious Republic.
He made a very beautiful statue of a Hercules for the Duke of
Ferrara; and for the Church of S. Marco he executed four scenes of
bronze in half-relief, one braccio in height and one and a half in
length, for placing around a pulpit, and containing stories of that
Evangelist, which are held in great estimation for their variety. Over
the door of the same S. Marco he has made a Madonna of marble, the
size of life, which is held to be a very beautiful thing, and at the
entrance of the sacristy in that place there is by his hand the door
of bronze, divided into two most beautiful parts, with stories of
Jesus Christ all in half-relief and wrought excellently well; and over
the door of the Arsenal he has made a very lovely Madonna of marble,
who is holding her Son in her arms. All which works not only have
given lustre and adornment to that Republic, but also have caused
Sansovino to become daily more known as a most excellent craftsman,
and to be loved by those Signori and honoured by their magnificent
liberality, and likewise by the other craftsmen; for every work of
sculpture and architecture that has been executed in that city in his
time has been referred to him. And in truth the excellence of Jacopo
has well deserved to be held in the first rank in that city among the
craftsmen of design, and his genius is rightly loved and revered by
all men, both nobles and plebeians, for the reason that, besides other
things, he has brought it about, as has been said, with his knowledge
and judgment, that that city has been almost entirely made new and has
learned the true and good manner of building.

But, if she has received from him beauty and adornment, he, on the
other hand, has received many benefits from her. Thus, in addition to
other things, he has lived in her, from the time when he first went
there to the age of seventy-eight years, full of health and strength;
and the air and that sky have done so much for him, that he does not
seem, one might say, more than forty. He has had, and still has, from
a most talented son--a man of letters--two grandchildren, one male and
the other female, both of them pictures of health and beauty, to his
supreme contentment; and, what is more, he is still alive, full of
happiness and with all the greatest conveniences and comforts that any
man of his profession could hav