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 remembered in detail his childhood, the sack of Rome, and many things, fortunate or unfortunate, that he experienced in his time. He was courageous, and from his youth took delight in contending with those greater than himself, because, he used to say, by contending with the great a man advances, but against the little he lowers himself. He esteemed honour above everything in the world, wherefore in his affairs he was most loyal and a man of his word, and so pure in heart, that no offer, however great, could have corrupted him, although he was put to the test several times by his Signori, who for this and for other qualities regarded him not as their protomaster or minister, but as a father and brother, honouring him for his goodness, which was in no way feigned, but real. He was liberal with every man, and so loving towards his relatives, that he deprived himself of many comforts in order to assist them; although he lived always in repute and honour, as one who was observed by everyone. At times he let himself be overcome by anger, which was very great in him, but it soon passed; and very often with a few humble words you could make the tears come to his eyes.
He had a surpassing love for the art of sculpture; such a love, indeed, that, to the end that it might be dispersed widely in various parts, he formed many disciples, making as it were a seminary of that art in Italy. Among these, very famous were Niccolò Tribolo and Solosmeo, Florentines; Danese Cattaneo of Carrara, a Tuscan, of supreme excellence in poetry as well as in sculpture; Girolamo da Ferrara, Jacopo Colonna of Venice, Luca Lancia of Naples, Tiziano da Padova, Pietro da Salò, Bartolommeo Ammanati of Florence, at the present day sculptor and protomaster to the great Duke of Tuscany, and, finally, Alessandro Vittoria of Trento, a rare master in portraits of marble, and Jacopo de' Medici of Brescia; who, reviving the memory of the excellence of their master, have employed their talents on many honoured works in various cities.
Sansovino was much esteemed by Princes, among whom Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence, sought his judgment in building the Citadel of that city. And Duke Cosimo in the year 1540, Sansovino having gone on his affairs to his native city, not only sought his counsel in the matter of that fortress, but also strove to engage him in his service, offering him a good salary; and on his return from Florence Duke Ercole of Ferrara detained him 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, he sank gradually and died on the 2nd of November in the year 1570; and although in his old age he had run the whole course of nature, yet his death was a grief to all Venice. He left behind him his son Francesco, born at Rome in the year 1521, a man learned both in the law and in the humanities, from whom Jacopo saw three grandchildren born; a male child called, like his grandfather, Jacopo, and two female, one called Fiorenza, who died, to his infinite grief and sorrow, and the other Aurora. His body was borne with much honour to his chapel in S. Gimignano, where there was erected to his memory by his son the marble statue made by Jacopo himself while he was alive, with the epitaph given below in memory of his great worth:
JACOBO SANSOVINO FLORENTINO QUI ROMÆ JULIO II, LEONI X, CLEMENTI VII, PONT. MAX., MAXIME GRATUS, VENETIIS ARCHITECTURÆ SCULPTURÆQUE INTERMORTUUM DECUS PRIMUS EXCITAVIT, QUIQUE A SENATU OB EXIMIAM VIRTUTEM LIBERALITER HONESTATUS, SUMMO CIVITATIS MŒRORE DECESSIT, FRANCISCUS F. HOC MON. P. VIXIT ANN. XCIII. OB. V. CAL. DEC. MDLXX.
His obsequies were likewise celebrated publicly at the Frari by the Florentine colony, with no slight pomp, and the oration was delivered by Messer Camillo Buonpigli, an excellent man.