Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/265

Rh Andrea Verrocchio that of the horse only; but the latter no sooner heard this, than having first broken the head and legs of his mould, he returned in great anger to Florence without saying a word. His departure being told to the Signoria, they caused him to understand that he should never dare again to enter Venice, for if he did so they would take off his head. To tliis menace the master wrote in reply, that he would take care not to return, seeing that v/hen they had once taken off his head, it would be beyond their power to give him another, nor could they ever get as good a one put on the horse, whose head he had broken, as he would have made for it. Notwithstanding this reply, which did not displease those rulers, Andrea was afterwards induced to return to Venice, when his appointments were doubled. He then restored his first model, and cast it in bronze, but did not entirely finish it, for having taken cold, when he had exposed liimself to much fatigue and heat in casting the work, he died in Venice after a few days’ illness. Nor was this undertaking, which wanted but a little to its completion, and was placed in its destined position, the only one he thus left unfinished: there was another also, which he was executing in Pistoja, the tomb of Cardinal Forteguerra namely, adorned with figures of the three Theological Virtues, and that of God the Father above them. This monument was afterwards completed by the Florentine sculptor, Lorenzetto. When Andrea Verrocchio died, he had attained to his fiftysixth year; his death caused very great sorrow to his friends and disciples, who were not a few, but more particularly to the sculptor Nanni Grosso, a very eccentric person, and peculiar in the exercise of his art, as well as in his life. It is related of this artist, that he would never undertake any work out of his workshop, more particularly for monks or friars, but on condition that the door of the cellar, or whatever place the wine was kept in, should be