in his Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects (vol. 1, p. 693): “Lorenzo the Magnificent, then, always favored men of genius, and particularly such of the nobles as showed an inclination for these our arts; where 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 than 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 [di Giovanni], an old and practiced craftsman, who had once been a disciple of [Donatello].
