Open your eyes and look carefully that your money is not so spent as to purchase your own shame. I can assure you that from this district you will get nothing but average works of inferior and coarse masters. There is not a man who is capable—and you may believe me—except Leonardo the Florentine who is making the bronze horse of the Duke Francesco and who has no need to bring himself into notice, because he has work to do which will last him the whole of his life, and I doubt whether he will ever finish it, so great it is.
