nzio Danti of Perugia, who under the protection of
Duke Cosimo has adopted Florence as his country, is a young man truly
rare and of fine genius. Vincenzio, when a youth, worked as a goldsmith,
and executed in that profession things beyond belief; and afterwards,
having applied himself to the work of casting, he had the courage at the
age of twenty to cast in bronze a statue of Pope Julius III, four
braccia high, seated and giving the Benediction; which statue, a very
creditable work, is now in the Piazza of Perugia. Then, having come to
Florence to serve Duke Cosimo, he made a very beautiful model in wax,
larger than life, of a Hercules crushing Antaeus, in order to cast from
it a figure in bronze, which was to be placed over the principal
fountain in the garden of Castello, a villa of the said Lord Duke. But,
having made the mould upon that model, in seeking to cast it in bronze
it did not succeed, although he returned twice to the work; either by
bad fortune, or because the metal was burnt, or for some other reason.
Having then turned, in order not to subject his labours to the whim of
chance, to working in marble, he executed in a short time from one
single piece of marble two figures, Honour with Deceit beneath it, and
with such diligence, that it seemed as if he had never done anything but
handle the hammer and chisels; and on the head of Honour, which is
beautiful, he made the hair curling and so well pierced through, that it
seems real and natural, besides displaying a very good knowledge of the
nude. That statue is now in the courtyard of the house of Signor Sforza
Almeni in the Via de' Servi. And at Fiesole, for the same Signor
Sforza, he made many ornaments in his garden and around certain
fountains. Afterwards he executed for the Lord Duke some low-reliefs in
marble and in bronze, which were held to be very beautiful, for in that
manner of sculpture he is perhaps not inferior to any other master. He
then cast, also in bronze, the grating of the chapel built in the new
apartments of the Palace, which were painted by Giorgio Vasari, and with
it a panel with many figures in low-relief, which serves to close a
press wherein the Duke keeps writings of importance; and another panel
one braccio and a half in height and two and a half in breadth,
representing how Moses, in order to heal the Hebrew people from the
bites of the serpents, placed one upon a pole. All these things are in
the possession of that lord, by ord