Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 07 (of 10): Tribolo to Il SodomaVasari, Giorgio
History
Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 07 (of 10): Tribolo to Il Sodoma
Vasari, Giorgio
Art, Italian; Artists -- Italy -- Biography
At that time Tribolo had finished a model for the shaft of the
fountain in the labyrinth, in which are some Satyrs in low-relief,
four masks in half-relief, and four little boys in the round, who are
seated upon certain caulicoles. Vinci having then returned, Tribolo
gave him this shaft to do, and he executed and finished it, making in
it some delicate designs not employed by any other but himself, which
greatly pleased all who saw them. Then, having had the whole marble
tazza of that fountain finished, Tribolo thought of placing on the
edge of it four children in the round, lying down and playing with
their arms and legs in the water, in various attitudes; and these he
intended to cast in bronze. Vinci, at the commission of Tribolo, made
them of clay, and they were afterwards cast in bronze by Zanobi
Lastricati, a sculptor and a man very experienced in matters of
casting; and they were placed not long since around the fountain,
where they make a most beautiful effect.
There was in daily intercourse with Tribolo one Luca Martini, the
proveditor at that time for the building of the Mercato Nuovo, who,
praising highly the excellence in art and the fine character of Vinci,
and desiring to help him, provided him with a piece of marble
two-thirds of a braccio in height and one and a quarter in length.
Vinci, taking the marble, made with it a Christ being scourged at the
Column, in which the rules of low-relief and of design may be seen to
have been well observed; and in truth it made everyone marvel,
considering that he had not yet reached the age of seventeen, and had
made in five years of study that proficience in art which others do
not achieve save after length of life and great experience of many
things.
At this time Tribolo, having undertaken the office of superintendent
of the drains in the city of Florence, ordained in that capacity that
the drain in the old Piazza di S. Maria Novella should be raised from
the ground, in such a way that, becoming more capacious, it might be
better able to receive all the waters that ran into it from various
quarters. For this work, then, he commissioned Vinci to make the model
of a great mask of three braccia, which with its open mouth might
swallow all the rain-water. Afterwards, by order of the Ufficiali
della Torre, the work was allotted to Vinci, who, in order to execute
it more quickly, summoned to his aid the sculptor Lorenzo Marignolli.
In company with this master he finished it, making it from a block of
hard-stone; and the work is such that it adorns the whole Piazza, with
no small advantage to the city.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 07 (of 10): Tribolo to Il Sodoma — John Shaqi
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