Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/268

260 nal Cibo and the Duke Alessandro, be repaired thither, and labouring there with certain assistants, he brought the figure to a state of considerable forwardness. The Prince inquired daily as to the progress made in that work, and being informed that it did not seem likely to exhibit the degree of excellence which he had been promised, he gave Baccio to understand that if he did not serve him well, he should know how to find the means of taking vengeance. Hearing this, Bandinelli spoke with much disrespect of Prince Doria, and that circumstance reaching the ears of his Excellency, he resolved to get the sculptor into his hands by one means or another. But Bandinelli, seeing that spies were around him watching his proceedings, became suspicious of their intentions, and being a prompt and prudent person, he left the work as it was and returned to Florence.

About that period there was born a son to our artist, the mother being a woman who dwelt with Baccio in his house.

To this child the father gave the name of Clement, in memory of Pope Clement VII., by whom he had himself been always favoured, and who had just then departed this life.

After the death of that Pontiff, Baccio heard that Ippolito Cardinal de’ Medici, Innocenzio Cardinal Cibo, Giovanni Cardinal Salviati, and Xiccolo Cardinal Ridolfi, with Messer Baldassari Turini of Pescia, were about to give commissions for the sepulchral monuments in marble which were to be erected in the church of the Minerva, for Popes Leo X. and Clement VII.; now for these Bandinelli had himself prepared the models, but they had since promised to the Ferrarese sculptor, Alfonso Lombardi, by the intervention of Cardinal de’ Medici, whose servant Lombardi was. By the advice of Michelagnolo, Alfonso had changed the manner of the tombs, and had already prepared models for them, although he had no written contract for the same, his trust being wholly in certain verbal agreements: he was now making preparation for his departure to Carrara, there to have the necessary marbles excavated. But while Alfonso thus permitted the time to steal on, it chanced that the Cardinal Ippclito died of poison, being then on his way to meet the Emperor Charles V.

Learning this event, Baccio suffered no time to intervene,