shed in time, that they never quitted their labour; and
since drink, and that good Greco, was continually being brought to
them, what with their being constantly drunk and inflamed with the heat
of the wine, and their facility in execution, they achieved wonders.
Wherefore, when Salviati, Battista, and Calavrese saw the work of these
men, they confessed that for him who wishes to be a painter it is
necessary to begin to handle brushes in good time; which matter having
afterwards considered more carefully in his own mind, Battista began not
to give so much study to finishing his drawings, and at times to use
colour.

[Footnote 8: Martin Heemskerk.]

Montelupo then going to Florence, where, in like manner, very great
preparations were being made for the reception of the above-named
Emperor, Battista went with him, and when they arrived they found those
preparations well on the way to completion; but Battista, being set to
work, made a base all covered with figures and trophies for the statue
on the Canto de' Carnesecchi that Fra Giovanni Agnolo Montorsoli had
executed. Having therefore become known among the craftsmen as a young
man of good parts and ability, he was much employed afterwards at the
coming of Madama Margherita of Austria, the wife of Duke Alessandro, and
particularly in the festive preparations that Giorgio Vasari made in the
Palace of Messer Ottaviano de' Medici, where that lady was to reside.

These festivities finished, Battista set himself to draw with the
greatest industry the statues of Michelagnolo that are in the new
Sacristy of S. Lorenzo, to which at that time all the painters and
sculptors of Florence had flocked to draw and to work in relief; and
among these Battista made no little proficience, but, nevertheless, it
was recognized that he had committed an error in never consenting to
draw from the life and to use colours, or to do anything but imitate
statues and little else besides, which had given his manner a hardness
and dryness that he was not able to shake off, nor could he prevent his
works from having a hard and angular quality, as may be seen from a
canvas in which he depicted with much pains and labour the Roman
Lucretia violated by Tarquinius. Consorting thus with the others and
frequenting that sacristy, Battista formed a friendship with the
sculptor Bartolommeo Ammanati, who was studying the works of Buonarroti
there in company with many others. And of such a kind was tha