gment of that most noble lord, the true Maecenas of men of
talent, who, even as he was able to recognize men of lofty spirit and
genius, was also both willing and able to recompense and reward them.
Thus Giovan Francesco Rustici, a Florentine citizen, acquitting himself
very well in drawing and working in clay in his boyhood, was placed by
that Magnificent Lorenzo, who recognized him as a boy of spirit and of
good and beautiful genius, to learn under Andrea del Verrocchio, with
whom there was also working Leonardo da Vinci, a rare youth and gifted
with infinite parts. Whereupon Rustici, being pleased by the beautiful
manner and ways of Leonardo, and considering that the expressions of his
heads and the movements of his figures were more graceful and more
spirited than those of any other works that he had ever seen, attached
himself to him, after he had learned to cast in bronze, to draw in
perspective, and to work in marble, and after Andrea had gone to work in
Venice. Rustici thus living with Leonardo and serving him with the most
loving submission, Leonardo conceived such an affection for him,
recognizing him to be a young man of good, true, and liberal mind,
patient and diligent in the labours of art, that he did nothing, either
great or small, save what was pleasing to Giovan Francesco, who, besides
being of a noble family, had the means to live honourably, and
therefore practised art more for his own delight and from desire of
glory than for gain. And, to tell the truth of the matter, those
craftsmen who have as their ultimate and principal end gain and profit,
and not honour and glory, rarely become very excellent, even although
they may have good and beautiful genius; besides which, labouring for a
livelihood, as very many do who are weighed down by poverty and their
families, and working not by inclination, when the mind and the will are
drawn to it, but by necessity from morning till night, is a life not for
men who have honour and glory as their aim, but for hacks, as they are
called, and manual labourers, for the reason that good works do not get
done without first having been well considered for a long time. And it
was on that account that Rustici used to say in his more mature years
that you must first think, then make your sketches, and after that your
designs; which done, you must put them aside for weeks and even months
without looking at them, and then, choosing the best, put them into
execution; but that