Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/397

Rh the consuls, Lorenzo Ghiberti received a good farm near the Badia di Settimo, as a gift from the Signoria; nor did any long time elapse before he was himself received among the Signory, and honoured with a place in the supreme magistracy of the city. On this occasion, therefore, the Florentines deserved praises for their gratitude, as they have well merited the reproach of unthankfulness towards the many excellent men with respect to whom the country has proved itself by no means grateful.

After this most stupendous work, Lorenzo undertook the bronze ornaments of that door of the same church which is opposite to the Misericordia, with those admirably beautiful decorations of foliage which he did not survive to finish, being unexpectedly overtaken by death when he was making his arrangements and had already nearly completed the model for reconstructing the door previously erected by Andrea Pisano. This model was suffered to be lost, but I saw it formerly, when I was but a youth, in Borgo Allegri, before the descendants of Lorenzo Ghiberti had permitted it to be ruined. Lorenzo had a son called Bonaccorso, who finished the