him. He applied
himself to sculpture, but with little profit, as it is shown by the
heads that he made at Naples for the Palace of the Duke of Gravina,
which are not very good, since he never applied himself to art with love
or with diligence, but rather to scattering the property and the other
things which had been left him by his father and his grandfather.
Finally, going to Ascoli as architect under Pope Paul III, he had his
throat cut one night by one of his servants, who came to rob him. And
thus the family of Lorenzo became extinct, but not so his fame, which
will live to all eternity.

But returning to the said Lorenzo: he applied himself, while he lived,
to many things, and delighted in painting and in working in glass, and
for S. Maria del Fiore he made the round windows that are round the
cupola, excepting one, which is by the hand of Donato--namely, the one
wherein Christ is crowning Our Lady. Lorenzo likewise made the three
that are over the principal door of the same S. Maria del Fiore, and all
those of the chapels and of the tribunes, and also the rose-window in
the facade of S. Croce. In Arezzo he made a window for the principal
chapel of the Pieve, containing the Coronation of Our Lady, with two
other figures, for Lazzaro di Feo di Baccio, a very rich merchant; but
since they were all of Venetian glass, loaded with colour, they make the
places where they were put rather dark than otherwise. Lorenzo was
chosen to assist Brunellesco, when the latter was commissioned to make
the Cupola of S. Maria del Fiore, but he was afterwards relieved of the
task, as it will be told in the Life of Filippo.

The same Lorenzo wrote a book in the vulgar tongue, wherein he treated
of many diverse matters, but in such wise that little profit can be
drawn from it. The only good thing in it, in my judgment, is this, that
after having discoursed of many ancient painters, and particularly of
those cited by Pliny, he makes brief mention of Cimabue, Giotto, and
many others of those times; and this he did, with much more brevity than
was right, for no other reason but to slip with a good grace into a
discourse about himself, and to enumerate minutely, as he did, one by
one, all his own works. Nor will I forbear to say that he feigns that
his book was written by another, whereas afterwards, in the process of
writing--as one who knew better how to draw, to chisel, and to cast in
bronze, than how to weave stories--talking of himself