In short, this man has had, and still has, the greatest opportunities to exert himself and to execute works, seeing that the office of the Piombo gives such a revenue that the holder can study and labour for glory, which he who has not such advantages is not able to do; and yet Fra Guglielmo has executed no finished work between 1547 and this year of 1567. But it is the characteristic of those who hold that office to become sluggish and indolent; and that this is true, a proof is that this Guglielmo, before he became Friar of the Piombo, executed many heads in marble and other works, besides those that we have mentioned. It is true, indeed, that he has made four great Prophets in stucco, which are in the niches between the pilasters of the first great arch of S. Pietro. He also occupied himself much with the cars for the feast of Testaccio and other masquerades, which were held now many years ago in Rome. A pupil of this master has been one Guglielmo Tedesco, who, among other works, has executed a very rich and beautiful ornamentation of little statues in bronze, imitated from the best antiques, for a cabinet of wood (so it is called) which the Count of Pitigliano presented to the Lord Duke Cosimo. Which little figures are these; the horse of the Campidoglio, those of Monte Cavallo, the Farnese figures of Hercules, the Antinous and the Apollo of the Belvedere, and the heads of the Twelve Emperors, with others, all well wrought and very similar to the originals. Milan has also had another sculptor, dead this year, called Tommaso Porta, who worked marble excellently well, and in particular counterfeited antique heads in marble, which have been sold as antiques; and masks he made so well that in them no one has equalled him, of which I have one in marble by his hand, placed on the chimney-piece of my house at Arezzo, which everyone takes for an antique. This Tommaso made the heads of the Twelve Emperors in marble, the size of life, which were the rarest things. These Pope Julius III took, making him a present of an office of a hundred crowns a year in the Segnatura; and he kept the heads I know not how many months in his chamber, as choice things. But by the agency (so it is believed) of the above-named Fra Guglielmo and others who were jealous of him, such measures were taken against him, that, with no regard for the dignity of the gift bestowed upon him by that Pontiff, they were sent back to his house; where they were afterwards bought from him on better terms by merchants, and then sent to Spain. Not one of our imitators of antiques was superior to this Tommaso, of whom it has seemed to me right that record should be made, and the rather as he has passed to a better life, leaving name and fame for his ability.