X

ALL this while I worked as a goldsmith, and was able to assist my good
father. His other son, my brother Cecchino, had, as I said before, been
instructed in the rudiments of Latin letters. It was our father's wish
to make me, the elder, a great musician and composer, and him, the
younger, a great and learned jurist. He could not, however, put force
upon the inclinations of our nature, which directed me to the arts of
design, and my brother, who had a fine and graceful person, to the
profession of arms. Cecchino, being still quite a lad, was returning
from his first lesson in the school of the stupendous Giovannino de'
Medici. On the day when he reached home, I happened to be absent; and
he, being in want of proper clothes, sought out our sisters, who,
unknown to my father, gave him a cloak and doublet of mine, both new and
of good quality. I ought to say that, beside the aid I gave my father
and my excellent and honest sisters, I had bought those handsome clothes
out of my own savings. When I found I had been cheated, and my clothes
taken from me, and my brother from whom I should have recovered them was
gone, I asked my father why he suffered so great a wrong to be done me,
seeing that I was always ready to assist him. He replied that I was his
good son, but that the other, whom he thought to have lost, had been
found again; also that it was a duty, nay, a precept from God Himself,
that he who hath should give to him who hath not; and that for his sake
I ought to bear this injustice, for God would increase me in all good
things. I, like a youth without experience, retorted on my poor
afflicted parent; and taking the miserable remnants of my clothes and
money, went toward a gate of the city. As I did not know which gate
would start me on the road to Rome, I arrived at Lucca, and from Lucca
reached Pisa.