lity of King Francis.
And Fortune, not content with all that the poor man had endured up to
that time, gave him, in addition to all the rest, another very great
shock, in that King Henry presented that palace to Signor Piero Strozzi;
and Giovan Francesco would have found himself in very dire straits, if
the goodness of that lord, to whom the misfortunes of Rustici were a
great grief (the latter having made himself known to him), had not
brought him timely aid in the hour of his greatest need. For Signor
Piero, sending him to an abbey or some other place, whatever it may have
been, belonging to his brother, not only succoured Giovan Francesco in
his needy old age, but even had him attended and cared for, according as
his great worth deserved, until the end of his life. Giovan Francesco
died at the age of eighty, and his possessions fell for the most part to
the above-named Signor Piero Strozzi. I must not omit to tell that it
has come to my ears that while Antonio Mini, a disciple of Buonarroti,
was living in France, when he was entertained and treated with much
lovingness in Paris by Giovan Francesco, there came into the hands of
Rustici some cartoons, designs, and models by the hand of Michelagnolo;
a part of which the sculptor Benvenuto Cellini received when he was in
France, and he brought them to Florence.

Giovan Francesco, as has been said, was not only without an equal in the
work of casting, but also exemplary in conduct, of supreme goodness, and
a great lover of the poor. Wherefore it is no marvel that he was
assisted most liberally in the hour of his need by the above-mentioned
Signor Piero with money and every other thing, for it is true beyond all
other truths that even in this life the good works that we do to our
neighbours for the love of God are repaid a thousand-fold. Rustici drew
very well, as may be seen, besides our own book, from the book of
drawings of the very reverend Don Vincenzio Borghini.

The above-mentioned Lorenzo Naldini, called Guazzetto, the disciple of
Rustici, has executed many works of sculpture excellently well in
France, but of these I have not been able to learn any particulars, any
more than of those of his master, who, it may well be believed, did not
stay all those years in France as good as idle, nor always occupied with
that horse of his. That Lorenzo possessed some houses beyond the Porta
a San Gallo, in the suburbs that were destroyed on account of the siege
of Florence, wh