heir carving-tools than it is for him who practises painting to be able
to handle colours, it therefore happens that many who work very well in
clay prove to be unable to carry their labours to any sort of perfection
in marble; and some, on the contrary, work very well in marble, without
having any more knowledge of design than a certain instinct for a good
manner, I know not what, that they have in their minds, derived from the
imitation of certain things which please their judgment, and which their
imagination absorbs and proceeds to use for its own purposes. And it is
almost a marvel to see the manner in which some sculptors, without in
any way knowing how to draw on paper, nevertheless bring their works to
a fine and praiseworthy completion with their chisels. This was seen in
Andrea, a sculptor of Fiesole, the son of Piero di Marco Ferrucci, who
learnt the rudiments of sculpture in his earliest boyhood from Francesco
di Simone Ferrucci, another sculptor of Fiesole. And although at the
beginning he learnt only to carve foliage, yet little by little he
became so well practised in his work that it was not long before he set
himself to making figures; insomuch that, having a swift and resolute
hand, he executed his works in marble rather with a certain judgment and
skill derived from nature than with any knowledge of design.
Nevertheless, he afterwards gave a little more attention to art, when,
in the flower of his youth, he followed Michele Maini, likewise a
sculptor of Fiesole; which Michele made the S. Sebastian of marble in
the Minerva at Rome, which was so much praised in those days.

Andrea, then, having been summoned to work at Imola, built a chapel of
grey-stone, which was much extolled, in the Innocenti in that city.
After that work, he went to Naples at the invitation of Antonio di
Giorgio of Settignano, a very eminent engineer, and architect to King
Ferrante, with whom Antonio was in such credit, that he had charge not
only of all the buildings in that kingdom, but also of all the most
important affairs of State. On arriving in Naples, Andrea was set to
work, and he executed many things for that King in the Castello di San
Martino and in other parts of that city. Now Antonio died; and after the
King had caused him to be buried with obsequies suited rather to a royal
person than to an architect, and with twenty pairs of mourners following
him to the grave, Andrea, recognizing that this was no country for him,