he made, which
caused him to be held in great estimation, found his way as a young man
to Rome at the time when Pinturicchio was painting the Papal apartments
for Alexander VI, with the loggie and lower rooms in the Great Tower of
the Castello di S. Angelo, and some of the upper apartments. He was a
melancholy person, and was constantly studying the antiquities; and
seeing among them sections of vaults and ranges of walls adorned with
grotesques, he liked these so much that he never ceased from examining
them. And so well did he grasp the methods of drawing foliage in the
ancient manner, that he was second to no man of his time in that
profession. He was never tired, indeed, of examining all that he could
find below the ground in Rome in the way of ancient grottoes, with
vaults innumerable. He spent many months in Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli,
drawing all the pavements and grottoes that are there, both above ground
and below. And hearing that at Pozzuolo, in the Kingdom of Naples, ten
miles from the city, there were many walls covered with ancient
grotesques, both executed in relief with stucco and painted, and said to
be very beautiful, he devoted several months to studying them on the
spot. Nor was he content until he had drawn every least thing in the
Campana, an ancient road in that place, full of antique sepulchres; and
he also drew many of the temples and grottoes, both above and below the
ground, at Trullo, near the seashore. He went to Baia and Mercato di
Sabbato, both places full of ruined buildings covered with scenes,
searching out everything in such a manner that by means of his long and
loving labour he grew vastly in power and knowledge of his art.

Having then returned to Rome, he worked there many months, giving his
attention to figures, since he considered that in that part of his
profession he was not the master that he was held to be in the execution
of grotesques. And after he had conceived this desire, hearing the
renown that Leonardo and Michelagnolo had in that art on account of the
cartoons executed by them in Florence, he set out straightway to go to
that city. But, after he had seen those works, he did not think himself
able to make the same improvement that he had made in his first
profession, and he went back, therefore, to work at his grotesques.

There was then living in Florence one Andrea di Cosimo Feltrini, a
painter of that city, and a young man of much diligence, who received
Morto into