few, indeed,
are they who attain to the highest rank; and those who start with
eagerness from the post are greater in number than those who run
well in the race and win the prize.

Now there was more pride than art, although he was very able, to be
seen in Torrigiano, a sculptor of Florence, who in his youth was
maintained by the elder Lorenzo de' Medici in the garden which that
magnificent citizen possessed on the Piazza di S. Marco in Florence.
This garden was in such wise filled with the best ancient statuary,
that the loggia, the walks, and all the apartments were adorned with
noble ancient figures of marble, pictures, and other suchlike
things, made by the hands of the best masters who ever lived in
Italy or elsewhere. And all these works, in addition to the
magnificence and adornment that they conferred on that garden, were
as a school or academy for the young painters and sculptors, as well
as for all others who were studying the arts of design, and
particularly for the young nobles; since the Magnificent Lorenzo had
a strong conviction that those who are born of noble blood can
attain to perfection in all things more readily and more speedily
than is possible, for the most part, for men of humble birth, in
whom there are rarely seen those conceptions and that marvellous
genius which are perceived in men of illustrious stock. Moreover,
the less highly born, having generally to defend themselves from
hardship and poverty, and being forced in consequence to undertake
any sort of work, however mean, are not able to exercise their
intellect, or to attain to the highest degree of excellence.
Wherefore it was well said by the learned Alciato--when speaking of
men of beautiful genius, born in poverty, who are not able to raise
themselves, because, in proportion as they are impelled upwards by
the wings of their genius, so are they held down by their poverty--

Ut me pluma levat, sic grave mergit onus.

Lorenzo the Magnificent, then, always favoured men of genius, and
particularly such of the nobles as showed an inclination for these
our arts; wherefore it is no marvel that from that school there
should have issued some who have amazed the world. And what is more,
he not only gave the means to buy food and clothing to those who,
being poor, would otherwise not have been able to pursue the studies
of design, but also bestowed extraordinary gifts on any one among
them who had acquitted himself in some work better tha