d and an intimate of his own.
This man brought him a figure of that Saint that they had, old and
clumsy, beseeching him to make the new one like it. Wherefore Donato
strove to imitate it in order to please the chaplain and the nuns, but,
although he imitated it, clumsy as it was, he could not help showing in
his own the usual excellence of his art. Together with this figure he
made many others in clay and in stucco, and on one end of an old piece
of marble that the said nuns had in their garden he carved a very
beautiful Madonna. Throughout that whole city, likewise, there are
innumerable works by his hand, by reason of which he was held by the
Paduans to be a marvel and was praised by every man of understanding;
but he determined to return to Florence, saying that if he remained any
longer in Padua he would forget everything that he knew, being so
greatly praised there by all, and that he was glad to return to his own
country, where he would gain nothing but censure, since such censure
would urge him to study and would enable him to attain to greater glory.
Having departed from Padua, therefore, he returned by way of Venice,
where, as a mark of his friendliness towards the Florentine people, he
made them a present of a S. John the Baptist, wrought by him in wood
with very great diligence and study, for their chapel in the Church of
the Friars Minor. In the city of Faenza he carved a S. John and a S.
Jerome in wood, which are no less esteemed than his other works.

Afterwards, having returned to Tuscany, he made a marble tomb, with a
very beautiful scene, in the Pieve of Montepulciano, and a lavatory of
marble, on which Andrea Verrocchio also worked, in the Sacristy of S.
Lorenzo in Florence; and in the house of Lorenzo della Stufa he wrought
some heads and figures that are very spirited and vivacious. Then,
departing from Florence, he betook himself to Rome, in order to try to
imitate the antiques to the best of his ability; and during this time,
while studying these, he made a tabernacle of the Sacrament in stone,
which is to be seen in S. Pietro at the present day. Passing through
Siena on his way back to Florence, he undertook to make a door of bronze
for the Baptistery of S. Giovanni; and he had already made the wooden
model, and the wax moulds were almost finished and successfully covered
with the outer mould, ready for the casting, when there arrived, on his
way back from Rome, one Bernardetto di Mona Papera, a Fl