Domenico di Tommaso del Ghirlandaio, who can be called
one of the principal artists and one of the most excellent
masters of his age because of the merits, grandeur, and multi-
tude of his works, was created by Nature herself to become a
painter, and thus, notwithstanding the contrary wishes of his
guardian (for on many occasions, the best fruits of our finest
minds are spoiled by employing them in matters for which
they are unsuited, thus diverting them from enterprises in
which they are naturally gifted), he followed his natural
instincts, achieving great honour and profit both for art and
for his family, and he was beloved in his own time. His father
apprenticed him in his own profession with a goldsmith, a
craft in which he was more than an adequate master, and he
executed most of the silver ex-votos once kept in the wardrobe
of the Annunziata, as well as the silver lamps in the chapel,
all of which were melted down during the siege of the city
in 1529. Tommaso was the first artist to discover and make
use of the head ornaments of young Florentine girls called
garlands [ghirlande]; from this practice he acquired the name
of Ghirlandaio--not only because he was the first inventor of
this decoration, but also because he executed a countless num-
ber of such rare beauty that only those produced in his shop
seemed sufficiently charming.

Thus, he was apprenticed to a goldsmith, but he did not
find that profession to his liking and did nothing but draw
continuously. He was gifted by Nature with a perfect wit and
a marvellous and judicious taste in painting, and even though
he had been a goldsmith in his youth, he had always worked
at the art of design, and had come to have great quickness and

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