even profligate of both. But melancholy made him miserly in all that
concerned personal enjoyment; and he ought to have been born under
that leaden planet Saturn rather than Mercury and Venus in the house
of Jove. Condivi sums up his daily habits thus: "He has always been
extremely temperate in living, using food more because it was
necessary than for any pleasure he took in it; especially when he was
engaged upon some great work; for then he usually confined himself to
a piece of bread, which he ate in the middle of his labour. However,
for some time past, he has been living with more regard to health, his
advanced age putting this constraint upon his natural inclination.
Often have I heard him say: 'Ascanio, rich as I may have been, I have
always lived like a poor man.' And this abstemiousness in food he has
practised in sleep also; for sleep, according to his own account,
rarely suits his constitution, since he continually suffers from pains
in the head during slumber, and any excessive amount of sleep deranges
his stomach. While he was in full vigour, he generally went to bed
with his clothes on, even to the tall boots, which he has always worn,
because of a chronic tendency to cramp, as well as for other reasons.
At certain seasons he has kept these boots on for such a length of
time, that when he drew them off the skin came away together with the
leather, like that of a sloughing snake. He was never stingy of cash,
nor did he accumulate money, being content with just enough to keep
him decently; wherefore, though innumerable lords and rich folk have
made him splendid offers for some specimen of his craft, he rarely
complied, and then, for the most part, more out of kindness and
friendship than with any expectation of gain." In spite of all this,
or rather because of his temperance in food and sleep and sexual
pleasure, together with his manual industry, he preserved excellent
health into old age.