Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/180

172 buildings to be commenced, recommended Niccolò Soggi very strongly to his Holiness, entreating that the office of superintendent of that work might be conferred on him. Niccolò repaired to Arezzo thereupon with these hopes, but had not been there many days, before, wearied by the cares of this world, by the privations he had suffered, and by the abandonment of those who should least have neglected him, he finished the course of his life, and was buried in the church of San Domenico in that city.

No long time afterwards, Don Ferrante Gonzaga having also died, Domenico Giuntalocchi left Milan, with the intention of returning to Prato, there to live quietly for the remainder of his life, but not finding there either friends or relations, and perceiving that Prato was no place for him, he repented when too late of having conducted himself in so ungrateful a manner towards Niccolò Soggi, and returned to Lombardy, there to serve the sons of Don Ferrante. But no long time elapsed before he fell sick to death, when he made a will, leaving to his native commune of Prato the sum of ten thousand crowns, to the end that the people might buy lands and form funds, whereby a certain number of Pratensian students might be perpetually maintained in such sort, that when some leave their studies, others are taken to replace them. And so has it been done by the men of Prato; wherefore, grateful for that important benefit, which has in truth been a very fruitful one, they have placed in their council chamber the likeness of that Domenico, as being the image of one who had deserved well of his country.

To the carpenter Raffaello, called Il Riccio de' Pericoli, who dwelt hard by the corner of the Monteloro in Florence, there was born in the year 1500, as he related to me himself,