Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/421

Rh the most noble cities of Tuscany; always remarkable for active and honourable men: this house of Tatti was most especially favoured by that of Medici, and from the Tatti family descended that Jacopo of whom we are now to write. He was the son of an Antonio, a very estimable person, and of Francesca his wife, who gave birth to the child in the month of January, 1477. In his first years the boy was sent, as is usual, to acquire the rudiments of learning, wherein he displayed much intelligence: he soon began to study drawing of himself, and gave evidence, in a certain sort, that nature had disposed him to the study of design rather than that of letters, since he went very reluctantly to school, and was most unwilling to undertake the difficult acquirement of grammar.

His mother, whom he strongly resembled, perceiving this, and desiring to aid his genius, caused him to be secretly taught drawing, with the intention of making him a sculptor, perhaps in emulation of the rising glory of Michelagnolo Buonarroto, then very young. She may, perhaps, have also thought it a favourable augury that the latter and her son Jacopo were both born in the same street, the Via Santa Maria namely, which is near the Via Ghibellina. But the boy was meanwhile on the point of being devoted to trade, which he liked even less than grammar, and he opposed himself in such sort to this purpose, that his father ultimately permitted him to follow his own inclination.

At that time there had come to Florence the sculptor, Andrea Contucci, of Monte Sansovino, a place near Arezzo, much talked of in our days as the birthplace of Pope Julius III. Having acquired a great name in Spain as well as in Italy, Contucci was the best sculptor and architect, after Michelagnolo, then known to our Art: he w^as then occupied with the execution of two figures in marble; and with him Jacopo was placed that he might study the art of the sculptor. Andrea soon perceived that the young man promised to become very eminent, and neglected no precaution calculated to render him worthy of being known as his disciple; he became much attached to him moreover, and being as much loved by Jacopo in return, Contucci taught the youth with much