Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/183

Rh re-established, went to study with Jacopo Sansovino, the latter was engaged in the execution of that marble statue of Saint James the Apostle, which he produced in the house of the Wardens of works to the cathedral, in competition with Benedetto da Rovezzano, Andrea da Fiesole, and Baccio Bandinelli, a work still to be seen in the house of the Wardens with those of the other masters.

Nor did Tribolo neglect the opportunities for improvement then presented to him; drawing with careful study and working much in clay, he made such manifest progress in that art to which it was obvious he was naturally inclined, that Jacopo Sansovino daily became more and more amicably disposed towards him, encouraging and putting him forward by making him first execute one piece of work and then another; wherefore, although he then had Solosmeo da Settignano and Pippo del Fabro, young men of great promise, in his workshop, yet Tribolo was found not only to equal but even to surpass them by very far, and Jacopo began to make use of his services in various works; Tribolo adding dexterity in the use of the chisels to much facility in forming models, whether in clay or wax. He consequently became ever more useful to his master, and the latter, having finished the Apostle above-named, with a Bacchus, which he was engaged with for Giovanni Bartolini, by whom that figure was destined for his house in the Gualfonda, and undertaking furthermore to make a lavatory and chimney piece in macigno stone for his intimate friend Messer Giovanni Gaddi, caused Tribolo to execute in terra certain large figures of children to be placed over the cornice of the last-named work, which was intended for the house possessed bv Messer Giovanni on the Piazza di Madonna. These Tribolo completed to such perfection that Messer Giovanni, perceiving the genius, and charmed with the manner of the youth, gave him two medallions in marble to execute; these