[27] See the account of this in Vasari; vita di P. Brunelleschi, tom. ii. 114. It is of wood, and still exists in the chapel of the family Gondi, in the church of S. Maria Novella. I know that near a century before Donato, Giotto is said to have worked in marble two bassorelievos on the campanile of the cathedral of Florence; they probably excel the style of his pictures, as much as the bronze works executed by Andrea Pisano, from his designs, at the door of the Battisterio.
[28] Masaccio da S. Giovanni di Valdarno born in 1402, is said to have died in 1443. He was the pupil of Masolino da Panicale.
[29] Andrea Mantegna died at Mantoua, 1505. A monument erected to his memory in 1517, by his sons, gave rise to the mistake of dating his death from that period.
[30] Luca Signorelli died at Cortona 1521, aged 82.
[31] Lionardo da Vinci is said to have died in 1517, aged 75, at Paris.
[32] The flying birds of paste, the lions filled with lilies, the lizards with dragons wings, horned and silvered over, savour equally of the boy and the quack. It is singular enough that there exists not the smallest hint of Lorenzo de Medici having employed or noticed a man of such powers and such early celebrity; the legend which makes him go to Rome with Juliano de Medici at the access of Leo X, to accept employment in the Vatican, whether sufficiently authentic or not, furnishes a characteristic trait of the man. The Pope passing through the room allotted for the pictures, and instead of designs and cartoons, finding nothing but an apparatus of distillery, of oils and varnishes, exclaimed, Oimè costui non è per far nulla, da che comincia a pensare alla fine innanzi il principio dell’ opera! From an admirable sonnet of Lionardo, preserved by Lomazzo, he appears to have been sensible of the inconstancy of his own temper, and full of wishes, at least, to correct it.
Much has been said of the honour he received by expiring in the arms of Francis I. It was indeed an honour, by which destiny in some degree atoned to that monarch for his future disaster at Pavia.
[33] Frà. Bartolomeo died at Florence 1517, at the age of 48.
[34] Michael Angelo Buonarroti born at Castel-Caprese in 1474, died at Rome 1564, aged 90.
[35] Like Silanion—‘Apollodorum fecit, fictorem et ipsum, sed inter cunctos diligentissimum artis & inimicum sui judicem, crebro perfecta signa frangentem, dum satiare cupiditatem nequit artis, et ideo insanum cognominarum. Hoc in eo expressit, nec hominem ex ære fecit sed Iracundiam.’ Plin. 1. xxxiv. 7.