Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/137

Rh in the same city: lie likewise prepared the design for a very rich ornament, which was to be executed in marble: four figures, each four braccia high, were to form part of this work, but this design has not been put in execution, the work being impeded by the death of the master, which took place when he had attained his sixty-eighth year. Being a man who would never remain idle, Andrea had repaired to his house in the country, for the purpose of superintending the removal of certain piles from one place to another. Thus occupied he took cold from overheating himself, and this being aggravated by fever, he died, after a few days’ illness, in the year 1529.

The death of Andrea caused much grief in his native land, to which he did so much honour; he was greatly lamented by his three sons and his daughters, for the great love they bore him, as Tvell as for the loss they sustained by his departure: nor did any long time elapse before he was followed by one of those sons, Muzio Camillo namely, who had given evidence of a fine genius for learning and the sciences, and whose death took place, to the great loss of his family, as well as to the regret of their friends.

Andrea Sansovino was not only distinguished in art, but was in other respects a remarkable man; in conversation he was prudent and wise, speaking well and to good purpose, whatever might be the subject on which he discoursed; upright and well-regulated in every action, he was a friend to the good and learned, in whose society, and in that of natural philosophers particularly, he took great delight. He gave some attention to questions of cosmography, and left many drawings to his heirs, with certain writings on the subject of distances and measurements. Somewhat small of