f his sons,
but not having the means to educate them in letters, apprenticed Antonio
to the goldsmith's art under Bartoluccio Ghiberti, a very excellent
master in that calling at that time; and Piero he placed under Andrea
dal Castagno, who was then the best painter in Florence, to learn
painting. Antonio, then, being pushed on by Bartoluccio, not only learnt
to set jewels and to fire enamels on silver, but was also held the best
master of the tools of that art. Wherefore Lorenzo Ghiberti, who was
then working on the doors of S. Giovanni, having observed the manner of
Antonio, called him into that work in company with many other young men,
and set him to labour on one of the festoons which he then had in hand.

On this Antonio made a quail which is still in existence, so beautiful
and so perfect that it lacks nothing but the power of flight. Antonio,
therefore, had not spent many weeks over this work before he was known
as the best, both in design and in patient execution, of all those who
were working there, and as more gifted and more diligent than any other.
Whereupon, growing ever both in ability and in fame, he left Bartoluccio
and Lorenzo, and opened a fine and magnificent goldsmith's shop for
himself in the Mercato Nuovo in that city. And for many years he
followed that art, never ceasing to make new designs, and executing in
relief wax candles and other things of fancy, which in a short time
caused him to be held--as he was--the first master of his calling.

There lived at the same time another goldsmith called Maso Finiguerra,
who had an extraordinary fame, and deservedly, since there had never
been seen any master of engraving and of niello who could make so great
a number of figures as he could, whether in a small or in a large space;
as is still proved by certain paxes in the Church of S. Giovanni in
Florence, wrought by him with most minutely elaborated stories from the
Passion of Christ. This man drew very well and in abundance, and in our
book are many of his drawings of figures, both draped and nude, and
scenes done in water-colour. In competition with him Antonio executed
certain scenes, in which he equalled him in diligence and surpassed him
in design; wherefore the Consuls of the Guild of Merchants, seeing the
excellence of Antonio, and remembering that there were certain scenes in
silver to be wrought for the altar of S. Giovanni, such as it had ever
been the custom for various masters to make at dif