Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/352

340 them all a-light.” But, hearing that, the master bade him lay down the candles, declaring that no such pranks should be played before his house.

He has told me that, in his youth, he frequently slept in his clothes, being wearied with his labours he had no mind to undress merely that he might have to dress again. Many have accused him of being avaricious, but they are mistaken; he has proved himself the contrary, whether as regards his works in art or other possessions. He presented rich productions of various kind, as we have seen, to Messer Tommaso de’ Cavalieri and Messer Bindo, with designs of considerable value to Fra Bastiano: while to his disciple, Antonio Mini, he gave designs, cartoons, the picture of the Leda, and all the models in clay or wax that ever he had made, but which were left in France as we have said. To Grherardo Perini, a Florentine gentleman and his friend, he gave, three plates of most beautiful heads, which have fallen since his death into the hands of the most illustrious Don Francesco, Prince of Florence, by whom they are kept as the gems which they truly are. For Bartolommeo Bellini he made the Cartoon of a Cupid kissing his motherYenus; a beautiful thing, now at Florence, in the possession of Bellini’s heirs. For the Marquis del Vasto, moreover, he made the Cartoon of a Noli me tangere; and these two last-mentioned works were admirably painted by Pontormo, as we have before related. The two Captives he gave to Signor Puberto Strozzi; and the Pieta, in marble, which he had broken, to Antonio, his servant, and Francesco Bandini.

Who is it then that shall tax this master with avarice, seeing that the gifts he thus made were of things for which he might have obtained thousands of crowns; to say nothing of a fact which I well know, that he has made innumerable designs, and inspected buildings in great numbers, without ever gaining one scudo for the same? But to come to the money which he did gain: this was made, not by offices nor yet by trafficking or exchanges, but by the labour and thought of the master. I ask also, can he be called avaricious who assisted the poor as he did, who secretly paid the dowry of so many poor girls, and enriched those who served him? As witness Urbino, whom he rendered very rich; this man, having been- long his disciple, had served him many years when Michelagnolo one day said to him, “When I die what wilt