Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/377

Rh gentleman. To this plague were added civil discords and various troubles in the city, from which Lorenzo was compelled to depart, when he repaired to Romagna, in company with another painter, where they worked together in Rimini, painting a chamber and other works for signor, which were all completed by them with great diligence and to the satisfaction of that noble, who, although young, took much pleasure in all things relating to art. Lorenzo meanwhile did not remit the prosecution of his studies in relation to design, but frequently executed rilievi in wax, stucco, and other materials of similar kind, well knowing that such rilievi are the drawing-exercises of sculptors, without practice in which they cannot hope to bring any great work to perfection. But Lorenzo did not long remain absent from his country. After the pestilence had ceased, the Signoria of Florence and the Guild of the Merchants resolved to proceed with the two doors of San Giovanni, one of the oldest and most important churches in the city, concerning which there had already been so much discourse and so many deliberations. The time was favourable for such an undertaking, the art of sculpture then possessing able masters in abundance, foreigners as well as Florentines: those in authority therefore, considering that the work ought to be done as well as talked of, gave orders that all the artists, masters of eminence throughout Italy, should be given to understand that they might repair to Florence, there to present a specimen of their abilities in a trial of skill, which was to be made by the composition and execution of an historical representation in bronze, similar to those which Andrea Pisano had executed for the first door.

Notice of this determination was sent by Bartoluccio to Lorenzo, who was then working in Pesaro, and whom his father-in-law urged to return to Florence, and show what he could do; saying, that this was an opportunity for making himself known and displaying his abilities, reminding him also that from the occasion now presenting itself, they might derive such advantages that neither one nor the other of them need any longer work at pear-making. The words of Bar-