n the others;
so that the young students of our arts, competing thus with each
other, thereby became very excellent, as I will relate.

The guardian and master of these young men, at that time, was the
Florentine sculptor Bertoldo, an old and practised craftsman, who
had once been a disciple of Donato. He taught them, and likewise had
charge of the works in the garden, and of many drawings, cartoons,
and models by the hand of Donato, Pippo,[20] Masaccio, Paolo
Uccello, Fra Giovanni, Fra Filippo, and other masters, both native
and foreign. It is a sure fact that these arts can only be acquired
by a long course of study in drawing and diligently imitating works
of excellence; and whoever has not such facilities, however much he
may be assisted by nature, can never arrive at perfection, save late
in life.

But to return to the antiquities of the garden; they were in great
part dispersed in the year 1494, when Piero, the son of the
aforesaid Lorenzo, was banished from Florence, all being sold by
auction. The greater part of them, however, were restored to the
Magnificent Giuliano in the year 1512, at the time when he and the
other members of the House of Medici returned to their country; and
at the present day they are for the most part preserved in the
guardaroba of Duke Cosimo. Truly magnificent was the example thus
given by Lorenzo, and whenever Princes and other persons of high
degree choose to imitate it, they will always gain everlasting
honour and glory thereby; since he who assists and favours, in their
noble undertakings, men of rare and beautiful genius, from whom the
world receives such beauty, honour, convenience and benefit,
deserves to live for ever in the minds and memories of mankind.

Among those who studied the arts of design in that garden, the
following all became very excellent masters; Michelagnolo, the son
of Lodovico Buonarroti; Giovan Francesco Rustici; Torrigiano
Torrigiani; Francesco Granacci; Niccolo, the son of Jacopo[21]
Soggi; Lorenzo di Credi, and Giuliano Bugiardini; and, among the
foreigners, Baccio da Montelupo, Andrea Contucci of Monte Sansovino,
and others, of whom mention will be made in the proper places.

Torrigiano, then, whose Life we are now about to write, was a
student in the garden with those named above; and he was not only
powerful in person, and proud and fearless in spirit, but also by
nature so overbearing and choleric, that he was for ever tyrannizing
over all the ot