Procurators never had
and never would have at any time another equal to him, for they knew
very well how celebrated and renowned his name was with the men and
princes of intellect in Florence and Rome and throughout all Italy,
and every one held it as certain that not he only but also his
descendants and all his posterity deserved to be endowed for ever in
return for his singular genius.

Jacopo was in body of ordinary stature, without any fat, and he walked
with the person upright. He was white in complexion, with the beard
red; and in his youth he was very graceful and handsome, and therefore
much beloved by various women of some importance. After he became old,
he had a venerable presence, with a beautiful white beard, and walked
like a young man, insomuch that, having come to the age of
ninety-three, he was still very strong and healthy and could see every
least thing, however distant it might be, without spectacles, and when
writing he kept his head erect, not bending over at all as is done by
others. He delighted to dress handsomely, and was always very neat in
his person; and he always took pleasure in women down to extreme old
age, and much loved to talk of them. In his youth, by reason of his
excesses, he was not very robust; but when he had become old he never
suffered any illness, insomuch that for a period of fifty years,
although at times he felt indisposed, he would never avail himself of
any physician; nay, having had an apoplectic stroke for the fourth
time at the age of eighty-four, he recovered by staying only two
months in bed in a very dark and warm place, despising medicines. He
had so good a stomach, that he was not afraid of anything, making no
distinction between food that might be good and food that might be
harmful; and in summer he lived almost entirely on fruits, eating very
often as many as three cucumbers at a time, and half a citron, in his
extreme old age. As for his qualities of mind, he was very prudent and
foresaw future events in the matters of the present, weighing them
against the past; and he was zealous in his affairs, not considering
any fatigue, and never left his business to follow pleasures. He
discoursed well and with many words upon no matter what subject that
he understood, giving many illustrations with much grace; on which
account he was very dear both to the great and to the small, and to
his friends. And in his last years he had a memory still very fresh,
and remembere