NEXT day, I went to thank Madonna Porzia, and told her that her ladyship
had done the opposite of what she said she would; for that while I
wanted to make the devil laugh, she had made him once more deny God. We
both laughed pleasantly at this, and she gave me other commissions for
fine and substantial work.
Meanwhile, I contrived, by means of a pupil of Raffaello da Urbino, to
get an order from the Bishop of Salamanca for one of those great
water-vessels called 'acquereccia,' which are used for ornaments to
place on sideboards. He wanted a pair made of equal size; and one of
them he entrusted to Lucagnolo, the other to me. Giovan Francesco, the
painter I have mentioned, gave us the design. [1] Accordingly I set hand
with marvellous good-will to this piece of plate, and was accommodated
with a part of his workshop by a Milanese named Maestro Giovan Piero
della Tacca. Having made my preparations, I calculated how much money I
should need for certain affairs of my own, and sent all the rest to
assist my poor father.
It so happened that just when this was being paid to him in Florence, he
stumbled upon one of those Radicals who were in the Eight at the time
when I got into that little trouble there. It was the very man who had
abused him so rudely, and who swore that I should certainly be sent into
the country with the lances. Now this fellow had some sons of very bad
morals and repute; wherefore my father said to him: “Misfortunes can
happen to anybody, especially to men of choleric humour when they are in
the right, even as it happened to my son; but let the rest of his life
bear witness how virtuously I have brought him up. Would God, for your
well-being, that your sons may act neither worse nor better toward you
than mine do to me. God rendered me able to bring them up as I have
done; and where my own power could not reach, ‘twas He who rescued them,
against your expectation, out of your violent hands.” On leaving the
man, he wrote me all this story, begging me for God’s sake to practise
music at times, in order that I might not lose the fine accomplishment
which he had taught me with such trouble. The letter so overflowed with
expressions of the tenderest fatherly affection, that I was moved to
tears of filial piety, resolving, before he died, to gratify him amply
with regard to music. Thus God grants us those lawful blessings which we
ask in prayer, nothing doubting.
Note 1. That is, Il Fattore. See above, p. 34.