Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/504

490 became paralytic, and could no longer labour in any manner, whereupon he took to his bed, where he lay constantly, in a poor little house which he had in the Via del Cocomero, close to the nuns of San Niceolo, and here, becoming worse from day to day, and declining by degrees, he died on the 13th of December, 1466. He was buried in the church of San Lorenzo, near the tomb of Cosimo, as he had himself commanded, to the end that his body might be near him when dead, as his spirit had been ever near him when in life.

The death of Donato was much regretted by his fellowcitizens, by the artists, and by all who had known him in his life, and to the end that they might do him more reverence after death, than he had received while alive, they performed his obsequies most honourably in the above-named church, and he was accompanied to his grave by all the painters, architects, sculptors, goldsmiths, and in fine, by nearly all the inhabitants of the city. Nor was it until a long time after that they ceased to compose verses to his honour in different languages, and of various kinds; of these it must suffice for us to give the few that may be read below.

But before I come to the epitaphs, I think it would not be amiss to relate one more anecdote of Donatello, which is as follows: When he had already become sick, and a short time only before he died, there went to see him certain persons of his kinsfolk, and after they had saluted him, as is customary, and condoled with him on his illness, they told him that it was his duty to leave a farm which he had in the territories