about his person and proposed various
conditions to him, making every effort to keep him in Ferrara. But
he, being used to Venice, and finding himself comfortable in that
city, where he had lived a great part of his life, and having a
singular love for the Procurators, by whom he was so much honoured,
would never listen to any of them. He was also invited by Pope Paul
III, who wished to advance him to the charge of S. Pietro in the place
of Antonio da San Gallo, and with this Monsignor della Casa, who was
then Legate in Venice, occupied himself much; but all was in vain,
because he said that he was not minded to exchange the manner of life
of a republic for that of living under an absolute Prince. And King
Philip of Spain, on his way to Germany, showed him much kindness at
Peschiera, whither Jacopo had gone to see him.

He had an immoderate desire of glory, and by reason of that used to
spend his own substance on others (not without notable harm to his
descendants), in the hope that there might remain some memory of him.
Good judges say that although he had to yield to Michelagnolo, yet in
certain things he was his superior. Thus in the fashioning of
draperies, in children, and in the expressions of women, Jacopo had no
equal, for the reason that his draperies in marble were very delicate
and well executed, with beautiful folds and curves that revealed the
nude beneath the vestments; his children he made tender and soft,
without those muscles that adults have, and with their little arms and
legs as if of flesh, insomuch that they were in no way different from
the life; and the expressions of his women were sweet and pleasing,
and as gracious as could be, as is clearly seen from various Madonnas
made by him in many places, of marble and in low-relief, and from his
statues of Venus and other figures.

Now this man, having thus become celebrated in sculpture and in
architecture a master without a rival, and having lived in the grace
of mankind and also of God, who bestowed upon him the genius that made
him illustrious, as has been related, when he had come to the age of
ninety-three, feeling somewhat weary in body, took to his bed in order
to rest; in which having lain without any kind of suffering, although
he strove to rise and dress himself as if well, for a period of a
month and a half, failing little by little, he asked for the
Sacraments of the Church, which having received, while still hoping to
live a few years,