Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/184

176 lie also finished admirably well, and they were afterwards placed over certain doors of the same house.

Meanwhile there was a sepulchral monument for the King of Portugal, a work of great labour and much importance, to be entrusted to some artist, and Jacopo, having been the disciple of Andrea Contucci of the Monte Sansavino, and having the reputation not only of being equal to his master, who was a man of great renown, but even of possessing a more beautiful manner, received the commission for that monument by the intervention of Bartolini, and made a most superb model in wood for the same. Numerous figures in wax, and historical representations in relief, were also prepared for this model, the greater part of which were by the hand of Tribolo. These being considered exceedingly beautiful, the fame of the young artist increased to such a degree that, having left Sansovino, as considering himself now capable of working for himself, he was at once employed by Matteo the son of Lorenzo Strozzi, who first gave him certain figures of children in stone to execute; and shortly after, finding these done very much to his liking, he further commissioned him to prepare two others in marble, which last now support a Dolphin, pouring water from his mouth into a fish-pond, and are to be seen at the villa which the above-named Messer Matteo has at San Casciano, a place distant about eight miles from Florence.

While these works of Tribolo were in course of execution in Florence, Messer Bartolommeo Barbazzi, a gentleman of Bologna, chanced to be summoned thither for certain of his affairs. Pie then remembered that search was making in Bologna for a young artist of good ability,, to prepare figures and execute historical representations in marble, on the façade of San Petronio, the principal church of that city: remembering this, I say, and having been greatly pleased with such of Tribolo’s works as he had seen, Messer Bartolommeo spoke with the latter on the subject; wherefore, being equally satisfied with the manners and other qualities of the young man, he finally took him to Bologna. Here Tribolo was immediately commissioned to execute two Sybils in marble, which he completed with infinite care in a very