Crucifix of wood, as large as life, for sending to France, but it was
left with Niccolo Buoni, together with other things in low-relief and
drawings, which are now in his possession, at the time when Rustici
resolved to leave Florence, believing that it was no place for him and
thinking by a change of country to obtain a change of fortune. For Duke
Giuliano, by whom he was always much favoured, he made a profile of his
head in half-relief, and cast it in bronze; and this, which was held to
be a remarkable work, is now in the house of M. Alessandro, the son of
M. Ottaviano de' Medici. To the painter Ruberto di Filippo Lippi, who
was his disciple, Giovan Francesco gave many works by his own hand, such
as low-reliefs, models, and designs; and, among other things, several
pictures--a Leda, a Europa, a Neptune, a very beautiful Vulcan, and
another little panel in low-relief wherein is a nude man on horseback of
great beauty, which panel is now in the study of Don Silvano Razzi, at
the Angeli. The same Giovan Francesco made a very beautiful woman in
bronze, two braccia in height, representing one of the Graces, who was
pressing one of her breasts; but it is not known what became of it, nor
in whose possession it is to be found. Of his horses in clay with men on
their backs or under them, similar to those already mentioned, there are
many in the houses of citizens, which were presented by him to his
various friends, for he was very courteous, and not, like most men of
his class, mean and discourteous. And Dionigi da Diacceto, an excellent
and honourable gentleman, who also kept the accounts of Giovan
Francesco, like Niccolo Buoni, and was his friend, had from him many
low-reliefs.
There never was a man more amusing or fanciful than Giovan Francesco,
nor one that delighted more in animals. He had made a porcupine so tame,
that it stayed under the table like a dog, and at times it rubbed
against people's legs in such a manner, that they drew them in very
quickly. He had an eagle, and also a raven that said a great number of
things so clearly, that it was just like a human being. He also gave his
attention to the study of necromancy, and by means of that I am told
that he gave strange frights to his servants and assistants; and thus he
lived without a care. Having built a room almost in the manner of a
fish-pond, and keeping in it many serpents, or rather, grass-snakes,
which could not escape, he used to take the greatest pleasure in
standing, particularly in summer, to observe the mad pranks that they
played, and their fury.
There used to assemble in his rooms at the Sapienza a company of good
fellows who called themselves the Company of the Paiuolo;[10] and these,
whose numbers were limited to twelve, were our Giovan Francesco, Andrea
del Sarto, the painter Spillo, Domenico Puligo, the goldsmith Robetta,
Aristotile da San Gallo, Francesco di Pellegrino, Niccolo Buoni,
Domenico Baccelli, who played and sang divinely, the sculptor Solosmeo,
Lorenzo called Guazzetto, and the painter Ruberto di Filippo Lippi, who
was their proveditor. Each of these twelve could bring to certain
suppers and entertainments of theirs four friends and no more. The
manner of the suppers, which I am very willing to describe because these
companies have fallen almost entirely out of fashion, was that each man
should bring some dish for supper, prepared with some beautiful
invention, which, on arriving at the proper place, he presented to the
master of the feast, who was always one of their number, and who then
gave it to whomsoever he pleased, each man thus exchanging his dish for
that of another. When they were at table, they all offered each other
something from their dishes, and every man partook of everything; and
whoever had hit on the same invention for his dish as another, and had
produced the same thing, was condemned to pay a penalty.
[Footnote 10: Cooking-pot or cauldron.]
One evening, then, when Giovan Francesco gave a supper to that Company
of the Paiuolo, he arranged that there should serve as a table an
immense cauldron made with a vat, within which they all sat, and it
appeared as if they were in the water of the cauldron, in the centre of
which came the viands arranged in a circle; and the handle of the
cauldron, which curved like a crescent above them, gave out a most
beautiful light from the centre, so that, looking round, they all saw
each other face to face. Now, when they were all seated at table in the
cauldron, which was most beautifully contrived, there issued from the
centre a tree with many branches, which set before them the supper, that
is, the first course of viands, two to each plate. This done, it
descended once more below, where there were persons who played music,
and in a short time came up again and presented the second course, and
then the third, and so on in due order, while all around were servants
who poured out the choicest wines. The invention of the cauldron, which
was beautifully adorned with hangings and pictures, was much extolled by
the men of that company. For that evening the contribution of Rustici
was a cauldron in the form of a pie, in which was Ulysses dipping his
father in order to make him young again; which two figures were boiled
capons that had the form of men, so well were the limbs arranged, and
all with various things good to eat. Andrea del Sarto presented an
octagonal temple, similar to that of S. Giovanni, but raised upon
columns. The pavement was a vast plate of jelly, with a pattern of
mosaic in various colours; the columns, which had the appearance of
porphyry, were sausages, long and thick; the socles and capitals were of
Parmesan cheese; the cornices of sugar, and the tribune was made of
sections of marchpane. In the centre was a choir-desk made of cold veal,
with a book of lasagne[11] that had the letters and notes of the music
made of pepper-corns; and the singers at the desk were cooked thrushes
standing with their beaks open, and with certain little shirts after the
manner of surplices, made of fine cauls of pigs, and behind them, for
the basses, were two fat young pigeons, with six ortolans that sang the
soprano. Spillo presented as his dish a smith, which he had made from a
great goose or some such bird, with all the instruments wherewith to
mend the cauldron in case of need. Domenico Puligo represented by means
of a cooked sucking-pig a serving-girl with a distaff at her side, who
was watching a brood of chickens, and was there to scour the cauldron.
Robetta made out of a calf's head, with appurtenances formed of other
fat meats, an anvil for the maintenance of the cauldron, which was very
fine and very beautiful, as were also all the other contributions; not
to enumerate one by one all the dishes of that supper and of many others
that they gave.
[Footnote 11: Broad, flat strips of maccheroni.]
The Company of the Cazzuola,[12] which was similar to the other, and to
which Giovan Francesco belonged, had its origin in the following manner.
One evening in the year 1512 there were at supper in the garden that Feo
d'Agnolo the hunchback, a fife-player and a very merry fellow, had in
the Campaccio, with Feo himself, Ser Bastiano Sagginati, Ser Raffaello
del Beccaio, Ser Cecchino de' Profumi, Girolamo del Giocondo, and Il
Baia, and, while they were eating their ricotta,[13] the eyes of Baia
fell on a heap of lime with the trowel sticking in it, just as the mason
had left it the day before, by the side of the table in a corner of the
garden. Whereupon, taking some of the lime with that trowel, or rather,
mason's trowel, he dropped it all into the mouth of Feo, who was waiting
with gaping jaws for a great mouthful of ricotta from another of the
company. Which seeing, they all began to shout: "A Trowel, a Trowel!"
That Company being then formed by reason of that incident, it was
ordained that its members should be in all twenty-four, twelve of those
who, as the phrase was in those times, were "going for the Great,"[14]
and twelve of those who were "going for the Less"; and that its emblem
should be a trowel, to which they added afterwards those little black
tadpoles that have a large head and a tail, which are called in Tuscany
Cazzuole. Their Patron Saint was S. Andrew, whose festal day they used
to celebrate with much solemnity, giving a most beautiful supper and
banquet according to their rules. The first members of that Company,
those "going for the Great," were Jacopo Bottegai, Francesco Rucellai,
Domenico his brother, Giovan Battista Ginori, Girolamo del Giocondo,
Giovanni Miniati, Niccolo del Barbigia, Mezzabotte his brother, Cosimo
da Panzano, Matteo his brother, Marco Jacopi, and Pieraccino Bartoli;
and those "going for the Less," Ser Bastiano Sagginati, Ser Raffaello
del Beccaio, Ser Cecchino de' Profumi, Giuliano Bugiardini the painter,
Francesco Granacci the painter, Giovan Francesco Rustici, Feo the
hunchback, his companion Il Talina the musician, Pierino the fifer,
Giovanni the trombone-player, and Il Baia the bombardier. The associates
were Bernardino di Giordano, Il Talano, Il Caiano, Maestro Jacopo del
Bientina and M. Giovan Battista di Cristofano Ottonaio, both heralds of
the Signoria, Buon Pocci, and Domenico Barlacchi. And not many years
passed (so much did they increase in reputation as they held their
feasts and merrymakings), before there were elected to that Company of
the Cazzuola Signor Giuliano de' Medici, Ottangolo Benvenuti, Giovanni
Canigiani, Giovanni Serristori, Giovanni Gaddi, Giovanni Bandini, Luigi
Martelli, Paolo da Romena, and Filippo Pandolfini the hunchback; and
together with these, at one and the same time, as associates, Andrea del
Sarto the painter, Bartolommeo Trombone the musician, Ser Bernardo
Pisanello, Piero the cloth-shearer, Gemma the mercer, and lastly Maestro
Manente da San Giovanni the physician.
[Footnote 12: Mason's trowel.]
[Footnote 13: A sort of curd.]
[Footnote 14: The phrase, "To go for the Great," was
originally applied to those Florentine families that belonged
to the seven chief Guilds. It afterwards came to be used
simply as a mark of superiority.]
The feasts that these men held at various times were innumerable, and I
shall describe only a few of them for the sake of those who do not know
the customs of these Companies, which, as has been related, have now
fallen almost entirely out of fashion. The first given by the Cazzuola,
which was arranged by Giuliano Bugiardini, was held at a place called
the Aia,[15] at S. Maria Nuova, where, as we have already said, the
gates of S. Giovanni were cast in bronze. There, I say, the master of
the Company having commanded that every man should present himself
dressed in whatever costume he pleased, on condition that those who
might resemble one another in their manner of dress by being clothed in
the same fashion, should pay a penalty, at the appointed hour there
appeared the most beautiful, bizarre, and extravagant costumes that
could be imagined. Then, the hour of supper having come, they were
placed at table according to the quality of their clothes--those who
were dressed as Princes in the first places, the rich and noble after
them, and those dressed as poor persons in the last and lowest places.
And whether they had games and merrymaking after supper, it is better to
leave that to everyone to imagine for himself than to say anything about
it.
[Footnote 15: Threshing-floor.]
At another repast, which was arranged by the same Bugiardini and by
Giovan Francesco Rustici, the men of the Company appeared, as the master
had commanded, all in the dress of masons and their labourers; that is,
those who were "going for the Great" had the trowel with the cutting
edge and hammer in their girdles, and those "going for the Less" were
dressed as labourers with the hod, the levers for moving weights, and in
their girdles the ordinary trowel. When all had arrived in the first
room, the lord of the feast showed them the ground-plan of an edifice
that had to be built by the company, and placed the master-masons at
table around it; and then the labourers began to carry up the materials
for making the foundations--hods full of cooked lasagne and ricotta
prepared with sugar for mortar, sand made of cheese, spices, and pepper
mixed together, and for gravel large sweetmeats and pieces of
berlingozzo.[16] The wall-bricks, paving-bricks, and tiles, which were
brought in baskets and hand-barrows, were loaves of bread and flat
cakes. A basement having then come up, it appeared to the stone-cutters
that it had not been executed and put together well enough, and they
judged that it would be a good thing to break it and take it to pieces;
whereupon, having set upon it and found it all composed of pastry,
pieces of liver, and other suchlike things, they feasted on these, which
were placed before them by the labourers. Next, the same labourers
having come on the scene with a great column swathed with the cooked
tripe of calves, it was taken to pieces, and after distributing the
boiled veal, capons, and other things of which it was composed, they eat
the base of Parmesan cheese and the capital, which was made in a
marvellous manner of pieces carved from roasted capons and slices of
veal, with a crown of tongues. But why do I dally over describing all
the details? After the column, there was brought up on a car a very
ingenious piece of architrave with frieze and cornice, composed in like
manner so well and of so many different viands, that to attempt to
describe them all would make too long a story. Enough that when the time
came to break up, after many peals of thunder an artificial rain began
to fall, and all left the work and fled, each one going to his own
house.
[Footnote 16: A Florentine cake.]
Another time, when the master of the same Company was Matteo da Panzano,
the banquet was arranged in the following manner. Ceres, seeking
Proserpine her daughter, who had been carried off by Pluto, entered the
room where the men of the Cazzuola were assembled, and, coming before
their master, besought him that they should accompany her to the
infernal regions. To which request consenting after much discussion,
they went after her, and so, entering into a somewhat darkened room,
they saw in place of a door a vast mouth of a serpent, the head of which
took up the whole wall. Round which door all crowding together, while
Cerberus barked, Ceres called out asking whether her lost daughter were
in there, and, a voice having answered Yes, she added that she desired
to have her back. But Pluto replied that he would not give her up, and
invited Ceres with all the company to the nuptials that were being
prepared; and the invitation was accepted. Whereupon, all having entered
through that mouth, which was full of teeth, and which, being hung on
hinges, opened to each couple of men that entered, and then shut again,
they found themselves at last in a great room of a round shape, which
had no light but a very little one in the centre, which burned so dim
that they could scarcely see one another. There, having been pushed into
their seats with a great fork by a most hideous Devil who was in the
middle, beside the tables, which were draped in black, Pluto commanded
that in honour of his nuptials the pains of Hell should cease for as
long as those guests remained there; and so it was done. Now in that
room were painted all the chasms of the regions of the damned, with
their pains and torments; and, fire being put to a match of tow, in a
flash a light was kindled at each chasm, thus revealing in the picture
in what manner and with what pains those who were in it were tormented.
The viands of that infernal supper were all animals vile and most
hideous in appearance; but nevertheless within, under the loathly
covering and the shape of the pastry, were most delicate meats of many
kinds. The skin, I say, on the outer side, made it appear as if they
were serpents, grass-snakes, lizards large and small, tarantulas, toads,
frogs, scorpions, bats, and other suchlike animals; but within all were
composed of the choicest viands. And these were placed on the tables
before every man with a shovel, under the direction of the Devil, who
was in the middle, while a companion poured out exquisite wines from a
horn of glass, ugly and monstrous in shape, into glazed crucibles, which
served as drinking-glasses. These first viands finished, which formed a
sort of relish, dead men's bones were set all the way down the table in
place of fruits and sweetmeats, as if the supper, which was scarcely
begun, were finished; which reliquary fruits were of sugar. That done,
Pluto, who proclaimed that he wished to go to his repose with his
Proserpine, commanded that the pains should return to torment the
damned; and in a moment all the lights that have been mentioned were
blown out by a sort of wind, on every side were heard rumblings, voices,
and cries, awesome and horrible, and in the middle of that darkness,
with a little light, was seen the image of Baia the bombardier, who was
one of the guests, as has been related--condemned to Hell by Pluto for
having always chosen as the subjects and inventions of his girandole and
other fireworks the seven mortal sins and the things of Hell. While all
were occupied in gazing on that spectacle and listening to various
sounds of lamentation, the mournful and funereal table was taken away,
and in place of it, lights being kindled, was seen a very rich and regal
feast, with splendid servants who brought the rest of the supper, which
was handsome and magnificent. At the end of the supper came a ship full
of various confections, and the crew of the ship, pretending to remove
their merchandize, little by little brought the men of the Company into
the upper rooms, where, a very rich scenic setting having been already
prepared, there was performed a comedy called the Filogenia, which was
much extolled; and at dawn, the play finished, every man went happily
home.
Two years afterwards, it being the turn of the same man, after many
feasts and comedies, to be master of the Company another time, he, in
order to reprove some of that Company who had spent too much on certain
feasts and banquets (only, as the saying goes, to be themselves eaten
alive), had his banquet arranged in the following manner. At the Aia,
where they were wont to assemble, there were first painted on the wall
without the door some of those figures that are generally painted on the
walls and porticoes of hospitals, such as the director of the hospital,
with gestures full of charity, inviting and receiving beggars and
pilgrims. This picture being uncovered late on the evening of the feast,
there began to arrive the men of the Company, who, after knocking and
being received at the entrance by the director of the hospital, made
their way into a great room arranged in the manner of a hospital, with
the beds at the sides and other suchlike things. In the middle of that
room, round a great fire, were Bientina, Battista dell'Ottonaio,
Barlacchi, Baia, and other merry spirits, dressed after the manner of
beggars, wastrels, and gallows-birds, who, pretending not to be seen by
those who came in from time to time and gathered into a circle, and
conversing of the men of the Company and also of themselves, said the
hardest things in the world about those who had thrown away their all
and spent on suppers and feasts much more than was right. Which
discourse finished, when it was seen that all who were to be there had
arrived, in came S. Andrew, their Patron Saint, who, leading them out of
the hospital, took them into another room, magnificently furnished,
where they sat down to table and had a joyous supper. Then the Saint
laughingly commanded them that, in order not to be too wasteful with
their superfluous expenses, so that they might keep well away from
hospitals, they should be contented with one feast, a grand and solemn
affair, every year; after which he went his way. And they obeyed him,
holding a most beautiful supper, with a comedy, every year over a long
period of time; and thus there were performed at various times, as was
related in the Life of Aristotile da San Gallo, the Calandra of M.
Bernardo, Cardinal of Bibbiena, the Suppositi and the Cassaria of
Ariosto, and the Clizia and Mandragola of Macchiavelli, with many
others.
Francesco and Domenico Rucellai, for the feast that it fell to them to
give when they were masters of the Company, performed first the Arpie of
Fineo, and the second time, after a disputation of philosophers on the
Trinity, they caused to be represented S. Andrew throwing open a Heaven
with all the choirs of the Angels, which was in truth a very rare
spectacle. And Giovanni Gaddi, with the help of Jacopo Sansovino, Andrea
del Sarto, and Giovan Francesco Rustici, represented a Tantalus in
Hell, who gave a feast to all the men of the Company clothed in the
dress of various Gods; with all the rest of the fable, and many fanciful
inventions of gardens, scenes of Paradise, fireworks, and other things,
to recount which would make our story too long. A very beautiful
invention, also, was that of Luigi Martelli, when, being master of the
Company, he gave them supper in the house of Giuliano Scali at the Porta
Pinti; for he represented Mars all smeared with blood, to signify his
cruelty, in a room full of bloody human limbs; in another room he showed
Mars and Venus naked in a bed, and a little farther on Vulcan, who,
having covered them with the net, was calling all the Gods to see the
outrage done to him by Mars and by his sorry spouse.
But it is now time--after this digression, which may perchance appear to
some too long, although for many reasons it does not seem to me that
this account has been given wholly out of place--that I return to the
Life of Rustici. Giovan Francesco, then, not liking much to live in
Florence after the expulsion of the Medici in the year 1528, left the
charge of all his affairs to Niccolo Buoni, and went off with his young
man Lorenzo Naldini, called Guazzetto, to France, where, having been
made known to King Francis by Giovan Battista della Palla, who happened
to be there then, and by Francesco di Pellegrino, his very dear friend,
who had gone there a short time before, he was received very willingly,
and an allowance of five hundred crowns a year was granted to him. By
that King, for whom Giovan Francesco executed some works of which
nothing in particular is known, he was finally commissioned to make a
horse in bronze, twice the size of life, upon which was to be placed the
King himself. Whereupon, having set his hand to the work, after some
models which much pleased the King, he went on with the making of the
large model and the mould for casting it, in a large palace given to him
for his enjoyment by the King. But, whatever may have been the reason,
the King died before the work was finished; and since at the beginning
of Henry's reign many persons had their allowances taken away and the
expenses of the Court were cut down, it is said that Giovan Francesco,
now old and not very prosperous, had nothing to live upon save the
profit that he made by letting the great palace and dwelling that he
had received for his own enjoyment from the liberality of King Francis.
And Fortune, not content with all that the poor man had endured up to
that time, gave him, in addition to all the rest, another very great
shock, in that King Henry presented that palace to Signor Piero Strozzi;
and Giovan Francesco would have found himself in very dire straits, if
the goodness of that lord, to whom the misfortunes of Rustici were a
great grief (the latter having made himself known to him), had not
brought him timely aid in the hour of his greatest need. For Signor
Piero, sending him to an abbey or some other place, whatever it may have
been, belonging to his brother, not only succoured Giovan Francesco in
his needy old age, but even had him attended and cared for, according as
his great worth deserved, until the end of his life. Giovan Francesco
died at the age of eighty, and his possessions fell for the most part to
the above-named Signor Piero Strozzi. I must not omit to tell that it
has come to my ears that while Antonio Mini, a disciple of Buonarroti,
was living in France, when he was entertained and treated with much
lovingness in Paris by Giovan Francesco, there came into the hands of
Rustici some cartoons, designs, and models by the hand of Michelagnolo;
a part of which the sculptor Benvenuto Cellini received when he was in
France, and he brought them to Florence.