Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/376

362 the architect and sculptor, both distinguished men, to place that youth before themselves, and to acknowledge, as they did,—although self-love might tempt them to affirm the contrary,—that he was indeed a better master than they in the art that was in question, on the occasion to which we allude, namely, that of casting in bronze. This act, in truth, redounded to the glory of those two artists, as well as to the confusion of many, who, presuming on their own abilities, press themselves forward and occupy the place due to the talents of others, although they are unable to produce any good fruits; and after labouring a thousand years to effect nothing, do but oppress the efforts and hinder the advancement of those who might promote the progress of art and knowledge, but for their envy and malignity.

Lorenzo was the son of Bartoluccio Ghiberti, and in his early youth acquired the art of the goldsmith, under the care of his father, who was an excellent master, and instructed him in such sort that Lorenzo, aided by his natural abilities, became a better goldsmith than his teacher. But delighting still more in the arts of design and sculpture, he sometimes worked in colours, and at other times employed himself in the casting of small figures in bronze, which he finished very gracefully. He also took much pleasure in imitating the dies of ancient coins and medals, besides which he frequently took the portraits of his different friends from the life.

Whilst Lorenzo was thus labouring to acquire the art of gold-working with Bartoluccio, the plague, by which Florence was visited in the year 1400, broke out, as he relates himself in a book written with his own hand, wherein he discourses of matters touching the arts, and which is now in the possession of the venerable Messer Cosimo Bartoli, a Florentine