spoke as follows: "This Buonarroti and I used, when we were boys, to go
into the Church of the Carmine, to learn drawing from the chapel of
Masaccio. [1] It was Buonarroti's habit to banter all who were drawing
there; and one day, among others, when he was annoying me, I got more
angry than usual, and clenching my fist, gave him such a blow on the
nose, that I felt bone and cartilage go down like biscuit beneath my
knuckles; and this mark of mine he will carry with him to the grave."
[2] These words begat in me such hatred of the man, since I was always
gazing at the masterpieces of the divine Michel Agnolo, that although I
felt a wish to go with him to England, I now could never bear the sight
of him.

All the while I was at Florence, I studied the noble manner of Michel
Agnolo, and from this I have never deviated. About that time I
contracted a close and familiar friendship with an amiable lad of my own
age, who was also in the goldsmith's trade. He was called Francesco, son
of Filippo, and grandson of Fra Lippo Lippi, that most excellent
painter. [3] Through intercourse together, such love grew up between us
that, day or night, we never stayed apart. The house where he lived was
still full of the fine studies which his father had made, bound up in
several books of drawings by his hand, and taken from the best
antiquities of Rome. The sight of these things filled me with passionate
enthusiasm; and for two years or thereabouts we lived in intimacy. At
that time I fashioned a silver bas-relief of the size of a little
child's hand. It was intended for the clasp to a man's belt; for they
were then worn as large as that. I carved on it a knot of leaves in the
antique style, with figures of children and other masks of great beauty.
This piece I made in the workshop of one Francesco Salimbene; and on its
being exhibited to the trade, the goldsmiths praised me as the best
young craftsman of their art.