church,
Moschino made a S. Peter and a S. Paul of the same size, which were
held to be creditable statues. Meanwhile the work of the
above-mentioned Chapel of the Visitation was not abandoned, and it was
carried so far forward during the lifetime of Mosca, that there was
nothing left to do save two birds, and even these would not have been
wanting, had not M. Bastiano Gualtieri, Bishop of Viterbo, as has been
related, kept Simone occupied with an ornament of marble in four
pieces, which, when finished, he sent to France to the Cardinal of
Lorraine, who held it very dear, for it was beautiful to a marvel, all
full of foliage and wrought with such diligence, that it is believed
to have been one of the best that Simone ever executed.

Not long after he had finished that work, in the year 1554, Simone
died, at the age of fifty-eight, to the no small loss of that church
of Orvieto, in which he was buried with honour.

Francesco Moschino was then elected to his father's place by the
Wardens of Works of that same Duomo, but, thinking nothing of it, he
left it to Raffaello da Montelupo, and went to Rome, where he finished
for M. Ruberto Strozzi two very graceful figures in marble, the Mars
and Venus, namely, which are in the court of his house in the Banchi.
Afterwards he executed a scene with little figures, almost in
full-relief, in which is Diana bathing with her Nymphs, who changes
Actaeon into a stag, and he is devoured by his own hounds; and then
Francesco came to Florence, and gave the work to the Lord Duke Cosimo,
whom he much desired to serve. Whereupon his Excellency, having
accepted and much commended it, did not disappoint the desire of
Moschino, even as he has never disappointed anyone who has sought to
work valiantly in any calling. For he was attached to the Works of the
Duomo at Pisa, and has laboured up to the present day with great
credit to himself in the Chapel of the Nunziata, formerly built by
Stagio da Pietrasanta, executing the Angel and the Madonna in figures
of four braccia, together with the carvings and every other thing; in
the centre, Adam and Eve, who have the apple-tree between them; and a
large God the Father with certain little boys on the vaulting of that
chapel, which is all of marble, as are also the two statues, which
have gained for Moschino no little fame and honour. And since that
chapel is little less than finished, his Excellency has given orders
that the chapel opposite to it shoul