Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/498

486 Veltroni, the cousin of Giorgio, and Orazio Porta, both of the Monte San Savino; Tommaso del Verrocchio also has been one among these assistants.

There are besides many excellent foreign artists in the same Academy, but of these we have spoken at length in various places; it shall therefore here suffice to mention their names, to the end that they may not fail to be enumerated with the other Academicians. These then are: Federigo Zucchero, Prospero Fontana, and Lorenzo Sabatini, of Bologna; Marco da Faenza, Tiziano Vecellio, Paolo Veronese, Giuseppe Salviati, II Tintoretto, Alessandro Vettoria; the sculptor Danese; the Veronese painter, Battista Farinato; and the architect, Andrea Palladio.

But now, to say some few words of the sculptors who are Academicians, and of their works, in which I do not intend to be very diffuse, nevertheless, because they still live, and are for the most part of high fame, I add that the Florentine citizen, Benvenuto Cellini (to begin with the oldest and most honoured), now a sculptor, was without an equal, when, in his youth, he gave his attention to the art of the goldsmith; nor, perhaps, for many years was there any to compare with him in that calling, and in the execution of figures whether in full or low relief, nay, in all the other works proper to the vocation of the goldsmith. He set jewels and adorned the settings themselves with minute figures, so well formed and often so fancifully imagined that better would not well be conceived. The medals of gold and silver which Benvenuto also executed in his youth, can scarcely be sufficiently extolled. For Pope Clement VII. he made the brooch of a Cope or Pluvial, wherein he set a diamond, beautifully surrounded by minute figures of children in gold plate, and finished above with a figure of God the Father, most admirably executed. Wherefore, besides the payment, Benvenuto received from His Holiness the office of a mace-bearer.

The same Pontiff afterwards gave him a golden goblet to make; the cup was to be adorned with figures of the Theological Virtues, and this Benvenuto executed with marvellous art. At that time there was none among the many by whom